77 replies to this topic

[Acehilator]

1453 R, on 14 March 2017 - 07:42 AM, said:

Information Warfare was a good idea. It's now a dead idea. We don't get it anymore, because people freaked out over the laser thing and now it's been forever since folks even remembered that IW was supposed to be a pillar of this game equivalent in importance to Faction Frickin' Play.

"Importance" and "Faction Play" in one sentence? You are one hilarious comedian.

[Alan Davion]

1453 R, on 14 March 2017 - 07:42 AM, said:

How many times can Piranha spend months on a piece of game development that ends up binned before we don't get any fresh new development?

Information Warfare was a good idea. It's now a dead idea. We don't get it anymore, because people freaked out over the laser thing and now it's been forever since folks even remembered that IW was supposed to be a pillar of this game equivalent in importance to Faction Frickin' Play.

Energy Draw was, perhaps, less of a good idea, but Ghost Heat is a horrible idea and needs to go away. The fundamentals of ED were ripped straight from player proposals and feedback, and yet the player community rose up and said "we'd rather keep this horrific mess you inflicted on us years ago than try anything new." Yeah, in ED's case the implementation was swiftly getting out of hand, but rather than try and learn from that session, correct the idea and implement a newer, more interesting version, it ended up binned.

Now our Skilltree is binned as well, and we get to keep the same crappy filler system we've been dealing with since forever. IW is dead and gone. ED is dead and gone. Half a year from now, when the Skilltree is dead and gone and when this same intense resistance to change of any sort for any reason is threatening to make FutureTech a dead letter as well, are people still going to be as happy about that as they are now?

Yes, info war was a good idea, but remember how badly implemented the PTS was? Sensor ranges all over the place. Some mechs like the Dire Wolf had, what, like a 100 meter range while something like a Commando had something close to a kilometer of sensor range?

Yes the laser range lock thing was what the community ultimately focused on, but overall the entire info war setup was badly, BADLY implemented. It didn't help either that PGI didn't have the design and test document for it ready until like a week after they started the PTS that explained exactly what they were changing. By then though the damage had been done, on a nuclear scale.

Same thing with energy draw. Yes the idea might have come from the players, but PGI, as always, twisted and perverted it because they're completely incapable of making small, simple and sensible changes to the game. Everything's got to be the next best thing in grand sweeping changes where, if they somehow manage to fix one thing, they completely screw up a hundred other things.

PGI continues to try to change things just for the sake of changing something and that is ultimately what players are pushing back against.

The players told PGI over and over after each PTS session that what they were doing, if if went live, would break the game in ways they couldn't possibly imagine, particularly when they introduced the engine decoupling into the PTS. Which is yet another problem PGI suffers from. Going right back to their incapability to make small, sensible changes.

If you're trying to test the skill tree, you JUST TEST THE SKILL TREE~! You don't throw a monkey wrench into the PTS by suddenly and catastrophically altering the way the mechs twist their torsos, turn their lower torsos, accelerate and decelerate.

The same thing happened with the IW and ED PTS', they tried testing too much at once.

Or in laymans terms. They threw a 55 gallon drum of crap at the wall and none of it stuck.

[jjm1]

Man people are too upset the skill-tree is delayed.

Did you play it in PTS? Its hardly a big enough change to get hyped up over. Put it this way: If you think the game is stale now, you will think its just as stale after.

[1453 R]

WarHippy, on 14 March 2017 - 08:31 AM, said:

The tree isn't dead only delayed as they workout some of the very real problems. We all want to see the game improve and change, but you need to get over the idea that any and all change is good. The fact that they have delayed the tree so they can improve upon it is a good thing.

Information Warfare was "pushed back for review". It hasn't been heard from since.

ED was "pushed back for review". It hasn't been heard from since, nor has anything related to the number of excellent player ideas the ED PTS incited. Still holding a torch for Scarecrow's dual heat bar system.

Now the Skill Tree has been "pushed back for review". What're the odds we're going to hear from it in the future?

The community as an aggregate whole has a habit of screaming down any major change to the game and demanding it be dismembered and buried, with the handful of voices calling for reasonable adjustment drowned out by the "KILL THE WITCH!!" crowd that hates new ideas. I've been there, I pitched my fit over the engine decoupling change and suffered for it. In the end it didn't help.

I maintain that if Piranha keeps throwing these PTS initiatives out there and players keep unilaterally shooting them down, we'll stop getting PTS initiatives. Yes, the Skill Swamp implementation of the tree was not great. The layout needed to be changed, and null-value nodes like Improved Gyros or Hill Climb needed to be fixed so they didn't leave a bad taste in your mouth when you unlocked them. But Solahma's oft-championed Skilltree redux took things too far the other way. Completely spoke-styled Skill Wheels, with absolutely no lower-value nodes required in order to maximize devastating capstone abilities like sextuple artillery, is not the way to go.

I personally favor a more Borderlands-styled approach, with higher-value nodes locked behind a minimum investment, either in pathing or in overall number, of lower-value nodes in a tree. LOWER value, not no-value-whatsoever like Hill Climb and Gyros. Nevertheless, allowing a a player to dip into a Sensors tree, pick up Radar Derp and Seismic for free without having to take a single node of anything else, or allowing players to dip into Auxiliary and spend three nodes on triple consumables, is no good. No build should be able to get the best of everything, and Solahma's tree made it far too easy for any given 'Mech to obtain the best of everything.

A solution in the middle is what was called for, with a more linear set-up allowing players to avoid things they absolutely didn't want, but which still required significant investment in a given branch of the tree to gain the strongest benefits of that tree. Skill Swamp was the wrong implementation, Solahma Spokes were the wrong implementation, but both would've been better in a number of ways than our current crappy filler system that people only cling to because it's bland, inoffensive, and familiar.

Now we get no implementation. Are we going to do that to FutureTech, too? Because I'll be that guy and say it, I suppose: if the community screams down FutureTech, I'm probably as close as I'm going to ever get with being done with MWO. I'll never abandon it entirely, but I haven't put any serious, non-PTS playtime into the game in a good few months now because I just cannot work up the interest anymore. Discussing on the forums is much more engaging than actually playing the game, and I'll likely never stop doing that, but we cannot keep shoving every single game update in the game under the rug and then hitting it with hammers until it's so flattened out nobody remembers it's down there anymore.

I wanted a new skill tree. I wanted, and still want, Information Warfare more than I have ever wanted Commodity Warfare. I want FutureTech so badly it hurts, even with my expectations drastically damaged by this recent fiasco. I can't keep dealing with the rest of everybody shouting down everything that might make the game worth patching up and playing again, man.

I just can't.

[1Grimbane]

keep the 3 variant rule and shoot the skill tree in the head and leave it cold in a ditch

[1453 R]

1Grimbane, on 14 March 2017 - 09:19 AM, said:

keep the 3 variant rule and shoot the skill tree in the head and leave it cold in a ditch

Or...maybe we don't do that?

I don't particularly appreciate having to commit to 3+ variants of a given 'Mech if I feel like, saying, trying out a Linebacker on C-bills one day. The death of Rule of 3 was one of the unqualified positives of the impending Skill Tree system, and its loss is a problem, not a point for celebration.

[Jackal Noble]

1453 R, on 14 March 2017 - 07:16 AM, said:

Piranha as a game company can’t afford to keep sinking intensive development resources

Stop right there. please.
Since when is looking like it was made in Power-point is super intensive resources?

[Appogee]

Prosperity Park, on 14 March 2017 - 08:17 AM, said:

This is why we can't have nice things. People who post crap like this just because they can.

Crap begets crap.

When people can't differentiate between 'changes that make things worse' and 'changes that make things better', crap is the appropriate response.

But then, you'd know that, based on the crap you've been posting for the past three days.

Edited by Appogee, 14 March 2017 - 09:26 AM.

[1453 R]

JackalBeast, on 14 March 2017 - 09:24 AM, said:

Stop right there. please.
Since when is looking like it was made in Power-point is super intensive resources?

Ripping out the skill system and replacing it wholesale is development resources. A goodly chunk of them for this company.

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Look, guys. I get it. These are the MWO forums, salt is the chief export around here. But is anyone here really excited, and I mean actually excited, to see the Skill Tree die and know we're going to be stuck on our filler basic/elite/master 'tree' until the game shuts down?

Not wanting crap to go live is one thing. But please...stop celebrating the demise of our chance at a skill system worth inclusion in the game. Because as of right now I'm completely indifferent to the current basic/elite/module system - they could rip it out and leaving nothing in its place and I wouldn't really care because it is so incredibly, fundamentally boring and unworth my time. And at least if it was ripped out completely I could just buy singleton 'Mechs and enjoy them for what they are without Piranha's compulsion to invest in three or more and grind all of them simply to get one up to snuff.

The game needs a proper skill system. It doesn't have one. Now it likely never will. Why are people drinking to this fact?

[1Grimbane]

none of you know how much joy i derive from knowing the skill tree is dead

[PoorDecisions]

Big Tin Man, on 14 March 2017 - 08:40 AM, said:

It's not perfect, but the economics work and it's a step forward. It fixes the broken whale economy and allows a skill tree that is better than the current version.

The tree itself is a step forward. Node placement and their values and the refund program were a step backward. That's one step forward, three steps back. That's not fixing anything.

There is NO economy in this game. Players cannot trade among themselves.

[WarHippy]

1453 R, on 14 March 2017 - 08:59 AM, said:

I wanted a new skill tree. I wanted, and still want, Information Warfare more than I have ever wanted Commodity Warfare. I want FutureTech so badly it hurts, even with my expectations drastically damaged by this recent fiasco. I can't keep dealing with the rest of everybody shouting down everything that might make the game worth patching up and playing again, man.

We all wanted a new skill tree, but the game can't survive a very poorly implemented one. You are clearly desperate for some change to the game, but it needs to be good or it will be more damaging than doing nothing. Sure, this could end up like infowar and stay gone, but I don't think that is going to be the case this time. This time they are at least indicating that they understand the problem and have said they are going to work on it. This game isn't going to survive on what "might make the game worth patching" it needs something that will make it worth patching.

[TLBFestus]

It's not the players fault that PGI postponed the skill tree.

They could have simply gone ahead with it, complaints be damned.

The thing is, that they didn't because they were concerned that a significant percentage of the existing player base was up in arms and that it might damage their revenue stream. Now, in a huge MMO, they can absorb that kind of hit and wait for the players to trickle back.

PGI is a different beast, being a niche game, and I'm willing to bet that they didn't want to have a potential financial smack down occur, so they backed off. They don't have the players to spare and can't afford to alienate too many.

Not to mention that many of the criticism of the skill tree was valid. I was still surprised when they didn't stubbornly forge ahead regardless.

I don't see it as dead, like ED is. I think that they are going to sit down and rework it, hopefully address some issues and implement it some time this spring or summer.

[Scout Derek]

1453 R, on 14 March 2017 - 09:32 AM, said:

Not wanting crap to go live is one thing. But please...stop celebrating the demise of our chance at a skill system worth inclusion in the game. Because as of right now I'm completely indifferent to the current basic/elite/module system - they could rip it out and leaving nothing in its place and I wouldn't really care because it is so incredibly, fundamentally boring and unworth my time. And at least if it was ripped out completely I could just buy singleton 'Mechs and enjoy them for what they are without Piranha's compulsion to invest in three or more and grind all of them simply to get one up to snuff.

We (I) am not celebrating the demise of it, each and every single one of you I have talked to about this keep thinking that we want it dead.

WE DONT WANT IT DEAD, WE WANT THE ISSUES FIXED BEFORE IT GOES LIVE.

It's ******* logic, to fix something before it goes it out in mass production or patched. Because then that issue will have to be dealt with and waste EVEN MORE RESOURCES trying to fix the issue that could've been fixed!

I want it, I really do, but not if they're going to ignore the issues with it that can be fixed!

[Ted Wayz]

How about no.

How about PGI spend the time and resources on first learning what we want before putting resources into what we don't want. See tournament as a perfect example.

We all celebrated a change to the skill tree until we learned what it was. That could easily be avoided. Yet PGI continues to think they know what is best only to be proven wrong again and again and again.

And the arrogance displayed..."cheapskates" "lucky we own the IP" "players do not know what they want"...all direct quotes.

We could have a better game. If only PGI would listen.

[Alan Davion]

Ted Wayz, on 14 March 2017 - 10:24 AM, said:

How about no.

How about PGI spend the time and resources on first learning what we want before putting resources into what we don't want. See tournament as a perfect example.

We all celebrated a change to the skill tree until we learned what it was. That could easily be avoided. Yet PGI continues to think they know what is best only to be proven wrong again and again and again.

And the arrogance displayed..."cheapskates" "lucky we own the IP" "players do not know what they want"...all direct quotes.

We could have a better game. If only PGI would listen.

A-F***ING-MEN~!

I've been saying pretty much the same thing in all my posts over the last 24 hours.

[Weeny Machine]

Appogee, on 14 March 2017 - 07:33 AM, said:

They should make all legs have only one leg.

Because "change is good", right?

So let's make it MechHopper Online.

Logic.

Bush Hopper approves this proposal!

Edited by Bush Hopper, 14 March 2017 - 10:43 AM.

[R Valentine]

PGI could always try making something worth releasing, you know, instead of taking all of our ideas and perverting them beyond belief. That's an idea they haven't tried before.

[Scout Derek]

Alan Davion, on 14 March 2017 - 10:29 AM, said:

A-F***ING-MEN~!

I've been saying pretty much the same thing in all my posts over the last 24 hours.

same, but with varying words on talking about issues with the skill tree.

It's like those who were for the skill tree are ignoring the issues with it. Imagine the backpedal if it had gone live like this, the major backpedaling.

I don't want that to happen. Not after the Minimap Dilemna, not after the joke 2 years ago, none of that. Too many damn mistakes to keep making more.

It's getting old, and it's making me angry.

[Ghostrider0067]

PGI will PGI in much the same way that EA does EA. A small brain trust of developers have ideas, they put them into loose practice, and then implement what they feel best to either the benefit or the detriment of the community. It's rare when any major gaming company genuinely take an interest in what the players and forum goers think and it's been openly stated by one of the lead devs at EA that much of what comes about on forums for any game is largely tripe and thus ignored. They are the ones who make the game, not us. Surprisingly, PGI listened... be it good, bad, or indifferent... and the end result of that remains to be seen.That said, seeing how badly EA botched BF4 and wholly missed on BF:Hardline, they may have learned their lesson somewhat seeing that a PTE was set up to work out the kinks and get the games right. It saved BF4 (Hardline was doomed no matter what) and helped polish BF1 and the same can be said of PGI's efforts with their PTS.

Putting forth a half baked and less than polished effort is never a good idea seeing that the damage it may cause may not be fixable in time with the players who support the game. Its far better to pull back and re-evaluate than to make that game changing move and having it hurt them in the long run. Putting it in pause was the best plan here, like it or not.

I'm not opposed to the game being changed, but I am against it being changed and breaking more than it fixes. I'm also against making changes for the sake of it to drum up or maintain interest rather than making necessary and we'll devised one's to solidify the game as a whole.