

A Word Of Caution: Don't Waste Your Time On Gameplay Related Feedback For The Skill Tree Pts.
#1
Posted 26 April 2017 - 06:42 AM
At the same time, feedback on the balance issues and the Skill Tree structure was completely disregarded. For me these sides are more important as they are fundamental to the game and directly affect the gameplay, while good UI is just quality of life and economy issues are easier to fix.
To not clutter the post i will just link my text on previous PTS, where you can find the list of issues that received major agreement of the community. There were numerous of such posts actually, as many of dedicated players worked hard on the feedback (i wont even start to descibe how much effort did Solahma put in his Skill Tree mock-up).
All of those issues - after all this time - were not addressed.
That's why i think it's not fair when Chris (sorry to put you on a spot here) replies on the comment about the broken balance with a request for feedback.
As i see some new names in the active Skill Tree conversations now, i feel i must warn people: if you'll spend your time breaking down balance- and skill tree structure related issues and figuring out possible solutions for them, your work is most likely to be completely ignored.
Sadly i can't go back in time and tell myself all my work was a waste, but i can help to save other peoples' time now. Consolation Prize for me that is.
https://www.reddit.c...e_your_time_on/
#2
Posted 26 April 2017 - 07:00 AM
As with everything, there's stuff they're going to change due to feedback on and stuff they're not.
There's lots of reasons; some good, some annoying. A few:
* Requested changes don't fit into the budget.
* Requested changes alter aspects of the design in undesired ways. Note that there's often going to be things a given design is trying to do - or to NOT do - that you may well know nothing about.
* PGI simply disagrees on how the system should work. Who's right here isn't really relevant; it's their product, they're going to do what they feel is right.
* Factors incredibly important to a given poster may be unimportant to PGI, or vice versa.
Further, type of feedback matters.
PGI DOES listen to feedback about things that just don't work, or don't work correctly. At least major things; minor bugs have a tendency to get pushed down far enough on the priority list as to never see the light of day.
Most significantly, they absolutely listen to feedback from players who feel they're getting screwed financially/in terms of their account and take that very seriously - this PTS in particular was heavily modified from the prior specifically to address that feedback.
PGI listens to balance feedback. Balance changes, though, are driven from a different perspective than most players have. I'm not defending PGI here, mind you, and I think they should be much more aggressive with balance. But they have a tendency to make far-spread out large scale balance passes rather than small incremental ones, and this means most balance complaints get stuffed into the Balance Complaint Bin where they may or may not be addressed in the next Big Balance Pass. They do tend to address things that are much too good pretty reliably. Note that this doesn't mean "the meta of the week will be nerfed"; rather that things that are disproportionately strong, beyond just being the optimal build, they tend to eat nerfs pretty quick.
I think the problem here is that players see a PTS, and assume the whole thing is up for changes, and from PGI's perspective that's not what they're looking for. PGI has already decided that This Thing Is Happening, and Like This, but they're looking for major problems people have with it. Some - such as the economy of the system, and how old players' accounts are treated in the transition - are addressed with alacrity, while others such as the complexity of the system as a whole are left be, because they're past the design phase and (for better or worse) are not going to make fundamental changes now.
But clearly, leaving feedback is important. You may be butthurt because PGI didn't act on your particular thesis, but people SHOULD post what they've got a problem with (and what they like). PGI may not act on your complaints if you post them, but they definitely won't act on them if you don't.
#3
Posted 26 April 2017 - 07:39 AM
Wintersdark, on 26 April 2017 - 07:00 AM, said:
As with everything, there's stuff they're going to change due to feedback on and stuff they're not.
There's lots of reasons; some good, some annoying. A few:
* Requested changes don't fit into the budget.
* Requested changes alter aspects of the design in undesired ways. Note that there's often going to be things a given design is trying to do - or to NOT do - that you may well know nothing about.
* PGI simply disagrees on how the system should work. Who's right here isn't really relevant; it's their product, they're going to do what they feel is right.
* Factors incredibly important to a given poster may be unimportant to PGI, or vice versa.
Further, type of feedback matters.
PGI DOES listen to feedback about things that just don't work, or don't work correctly. At least major things; minor bugs have a tendency to get pushed down far enough on the priority list as to never see the light of day.
Most significantly, they absolutely listen to feedback from players who feel they're getting screwed financially/in terms of their account and take that very seriously - this PTS in particular was heavily modified from the prior specifically to address that feedback.
PGI listens to balance feedback. Balance changes, though, are driven from a different perspective than most players have. I'm not defending PGI here, mind you, and I think they should be much more aggressive with balance. But they have a tendency to make far-spread out large scale balance passes rather than small incremental ones, and this means most balance complaints get stuffed into the Balance Complaint Bin where they may or may not be addressed in the next Big Balance Pass. They do tend to address things that are much too good pretty reliably. Note that this doesn't mean "the meta of the week will be nerfed"; rather that things that are disproportionately strong, beyond just being the optimal build, they tend to eat nerfs pretty quick.
I think the problem here is that players see a PTS, and assume the whole thing is up for changes, and from PGI's perspective that's not what they're looking for. PGI has already decided that This Thing Is Happening, and Like This, but they're looking for major problems people have with it. Some - such as the economy of the system, and how old players' accounts are treated in the transition - are addressed with alacrity, while others such as the complexity of the system as a whole are left be, because they're past the design phase and (for better or worse) are not going to make fundamental changes now.
But clearly, leaving feedback is important. You may be butthurt because PGI didn't act on your particular thesis, but people SHOULD post what they've got a problem with (and what they like). PGI may not act on your complaints if you post them, but they definitely won't act on them if you don't.
I disagree. Of course they can do what they want, and not every sugestion can be implemented, but when there is a general concensus on several points and most of them are not taken into account, then what banana peel says becomes true: the call for feedback is not a true one. What is the use of asking for feedback when the most agreed upon points aren't listened?
Furthermore, the "this is happening exactly as I say so" mentality is SO not good for the game, for business or for life, for that matter. Everything shoud be subject to change. Of course, the change should ocur only when there is good reason for it, and I think that this time there is. For once, there is the reason of general concensus of a big percentage of people, and, if you don't like the argumentum ad populum, then there is this one: the changes proposed, like the elimination of mandatory unwanted skills, absence of choice, unnecesary complexity and respec costs, have solid ground to be proposed. They 1) are common sense, 2) are what people want (and remember we are the clients), 3) make the system less frustrating, 4) are basic principles of design. Besides, the fact that 3 of the 4 points I mentioned are fixable by eliminating the "tree" part of the skill tree draws atention to the fact that they just don't want to take a step back on a decision just because it was already decided, even if evidence shows it's not a good idea.
Edited by Commander James Raynor, 26 April 2017 - 07:41 AM.
#4
Posted 26 April 2017 - 07:46 AM
Wintersdark, on 26 April 2017 - 07:00 AM, said:
You left a lot of words here and you may think they are relevant to the topic but they are not. Topic refers to all the baseline gameplay feedback that was provided by players during previous PTS. I'm not here to judge PGI's decisions, my judgement was made some time ago and it's not relevant either.
I'm here to state the fact that the feedback of the kind mentioned above was not used as nothing regarding gameplay was changed. It's a simple fact worth mentioning as it may help another player to make a decision whether or not he/she is ready to invest his/her time in this kind of effort.
Edited by banana peel, 26 April 2017 - 07:48 AM.
#5
Posted 26 April 2017 - 09:37 AM
I came to that conclusion because the refunds are a thing they will need to do once and then never do again, so they need to get that right. Meanwhile, anything regarding the tree or game balance can potentially be adjusted later.
Skill tree is coming, there is nothing you can do about it. Strong mechs will get stronger, weak mechs will get weaker. Balance will hopefully be addressed later. Meanwhile, I hope everyone enjoys driving clan mechs.
#6
Posted 26 April 2017 - 09:51 AM
Commander James Raynor, on 26 April 2017 - 07:39 AM, said:
The reality is that as I listed above there's a lot of reasons that suggestions, even if massively likely by players, may simply not be possible. Primarily budget related (be it money or time); the feature is simply beyond full redesign.
Quote
At no point did I say PGI makes the correct choices, or the best ones for the game. I merely explained that Peel's assertion that they ignore feedback is demonstrably false. They do listen.
Just don't think they're going to change something solely because lots of people on a forum agree. That's just not how it works.
People - I haven't read Peel's post, so I don't know if this applies to him - like to make these huge "Lets totally change how this feature works" posts, and everyone loves them because the design looks awesome. That's cool. But those posts NEVER get traction (even if the poster "did all this work/math/research/whatever) with PGI simply because they're already done the design phase. They never redesign things from the ground up.
So people have unrealistic expectations for a lot of their feedback, and as such shouldn't really be surprised when that sort of feedback isn't followed.
When PGI is asking for feedback, they want to know what you liked, and what you didn't, and why for both. They don't want people posting huge thesis's for redesigning features, because that's just not going to happen.
Again: I'm not saying PGI is right or wrong, simply that's how this works. For better or worse, there's no reason to expect them to change this MO now, given they've been doing it this way since day one.
but we can see:
1) When people overwhelmingly don't like a feature, it gets shelved. It doesn't get redesigned based on forum posts, it just goes away. PGI isn't interested in arm-chair dev work. Still, overwhelmingly negative feedback is followed.
2) When people have a serious problem with a particular aspect of new system, specifically one that creates an economic problem (be it P2W issues like the original consumable design, or old players with few modules getting screwed like SkillTreePTS1) that gets sorted pretty quick.
3) When there's a very serious balance issue, it tends to get corrected.
In each PTS we've had, there's been clear evidence of PGI listening to feedback. They don't act on all of it, and no player should think PGI is going to listen to them just because they think they're extra smart and wrote a big long post about something, even if lots of people agree... because again, this isn't a democracy.
So, yes, leave feedback. No, don't bother writing up your own particular redesign theory for a feature, because nobody cares and it won't happen. But absolutely do say what you like, and what you don't, because PGI *does* listen to feedback, even if they don't always act on particular parts.
#7
Posted 26 April 2017 - 09:54 AM
banana peel, on 26 April 2017 - 07:46 AM, said:
I'm here to state the fact that the feedback of the kind mentioned above was not used as nothing regarding gameplay was changed. It's a simple fact worth mentioning as it may help another player to make a decision whether or not he/she is ready to invest his/her time in this kind of effort.
People SHOULDN'T put in a lot of effort trying to redesign systems on PTS. You're correct there. PGI isn't going to pay any attention.
But it's very important that people DO leave feedback about what they like, and what they don't like.
Your post came across a lot more like "Don't bother saying anything, because PGI doesn't listen at all", which is simply not the case.
You SHOULD bring up balance issues - even if PGI doesn't address them in the PTS, it helps to ensure that PGI monitors that going forward. Puts it "on the board" so to speak.
But putting a lot of time and effort into complex solutions is a waste of time, yes. Absolutely.
#8
Posted 26 April 2017 - 10:38 AM
Wintersdark, on 26 April 2017 - 09:54 AM, said:
My post came across like this only for those who is actually set to defend PGI, seeing that something is somehow offended here. But none is. It's just a statement. I consider i did a mistake investing - amonst others - so much time into gameplay feedback and i dont want other people to repeat this mistake.
There is ZERO evidence PGI is listening to gameplay feedback, or that bringing up balance issues helps anything. Anyone that was heavily involved into previous PTS gameplay feedback knows it. With that information in mind i cant justify any advises or requests for players' balance and skill tree feedback. It's just a plain deceit.
Sorry, i must stop responding to you now, as i feel like i dont have much more to say on the topic, i'm repeating myself, and we are wasting each other's time.
#9
Posted 26 April 2017 - 06:01 PM
Wintersdark, on 26 April 2017 - 07:00 AM, said:
As with everything, there's stuff they're going to change due to feedback on and stuff they're not.
There's lots of reasons; some good, some annoying. A few:
* Requested changes don't fit into the budget.
* Requested changes alter aspects of the design in undesired ways. Note that there's often going to be things a given design is trying to do - or to NOT do - that you may well know nothing about.
* PGI simply disagrees on how the system should work. Who's right here isn't really relevant; it's their product, they're going to do what they feel is right.
* Factors incredibly important to a given poster may be unimportant to PGI, or vice versa.
Further, type of feedback matters.
PGI DOES listen to feedback about things that just don't work, or don't work correctly. At least major things; minor bugs have a tendency to get pushed down far enough on the priority list as to never see the light of day.
Most significantly, they absolutely listen to feedback from players who feel they're getting screwed financially/in terms of their account and take that very seriously - this PTS in particular was heavily modified from the prior specifically to address that feedback.
PGI listens to balance feedback. Balance changes, though, are driven from a different perspective than most players have. I'm not defending PGI here, mind you, and I think they should be much more aggressive with balance. But they have a tendency to make far-spread out large scale balance passes rather than small incremental ones, and this means most balance complaints get stuffed into the Balance Complaint Bin where they may or may not be addressed in the next Big Balance Pass. They do tend to address things that are much too good pretty reliably. Note that this doesn't mean "the meta of the week will be nerfed"; rather that things that are disproportionately strong, beyond just being the optimal build, they tend to eat nerfs pretty quick.
I think the problem here is that players see a PTS, and assume the whole thing is up for changes, and from PGI's perspective that's not what they're looking for. PGI has already decided that This Thing Is Happening, and Like This, but they're looking for major problems people have with it. Some - such as the economy of the system, and how old players' accounts are treated in the transition - are addressed with alacrity, while others such as the complexity of the system as a whole are left be, because they're past the design phase and (for better or worse) are not going to make fundamental changes now.
But clearly, leaving feedback is important. You may be butthurt because PGI didn't act on your particular thesis, but people SHOULD post what they've got a problem with (and what they like). PGI may not act on your complaints if you post them, but they definitely won't act on them if you don't.
So, are you going to just ignore the whole history of dumpster fire that PGI has been creating since the initial release?
We have.....
-Info war
-Re-scaling
-Heat capacity
-Mini map
If you actually read through the archived posts in this forum, you can find some very repeating patterns.
1) PGI releases a completely broken, utterly insane and non-common sense ideas and says they will be implemented.
2) Community goes uproar.
3) Almost zero meaningful adjustments happen during PTS period. PGI literally ignores pretty much every recommendations from the players.
Then either three happens.
(1) PGI wisely completely dumps the idea... which very unfortunately, yields best possible outcome.
(2) PGI unwisely pushes the update, which obviously damages the game and forces people to stop play and/or stop spend money on the game.
(3) PGI does some sorts of weird compromise that just slightly worsen the situation.
Info War and Heat Capacity was (1). Re-scaling was (2), and Mini Map was (3).
Just look at the result of the re-scaling has done to the playerbase. It is very frequent to see the queue of light mechs are 0% late at night most of the time. It is so hard to see a mech like Panther or Wolfhound unless it is trial mechs. Entire light mechs with exception of ACH and LCT (and some extent Spider, super rarely giantstarter.) Because anyone with a functional brain cell knows that when you bring a medium-size mech but with 1/2 of the armor will die very fast and will be very useless.
On top of that, Russ and Paul 'promised' some sort of compensations for these enlarge'd mechs, which never, never happened.
Just look at the mini-map. Before the update, at least we could tell where our allies are facing, which is actually far crucial to know what type of the mechs they are using. After the hype what we have is actually slightly worse version of the old one.
And we are feeling the consequence. Since last November, matchmaker no longer really differentiate tiers because the wait time would become intolerable due to decreased playerbase. Since the game's reception the population has been downhill until very recently it is stabilized, but still not getting any new players.
The history tells PGI does not really care nor listen to the feedback most of the time, thus OP's post is quite accurate.
#10
Posted 26 April 2017 - 06:10 PM
Wintersdark, on 26 April 2017 - 07:00 AM, said:
NO. SERIOUSLY STOP CALLING SERVICE A PRODUCT.
REPEAT AFTER ME: SERVICE IS NOT A PRODUCT.
I must bring this old post I made to explain the difference between service and a product.
https://mwomercs.com...04#entry5649804
Quote
You see, for buying a car, you actually 'own' a car. The car dealership actually does not have any responsibility when the warranty period is over.
For games like this, we are basically paying for 'service'. We do not actually 'own' any of these mechs. PGI merely sells the service to access these digital stompy robots so we can enjoy. As we spend money, we keep paying for the continued service.
And of course unlike car example, we (supposed to) have rights to complain about crappy service. Imagine you hired a entertainment company to organize your birthday party, and they are currently screwing up so hard. Of course you have to step in and make things right before the party goes really bad.
Our relationship with the company is 'continuous' because the company does not 'sell' products we 'own'. We are dealing with a service company.
YOU DO NOT OWN any of the mechs on the mech bay. When the game goes under, all of these mechs are gone, forever.
Unlike my Mech Commander copy which will play after 20 years, even though FASA is long gone now.
We have absolute entitlement for the service we are receiving, and so far the service provided by PGI has been just ultra terrible with exception of mech designs (which is probably only reason I spend the money really.)
Edited by The Lighthouse, 26 April 2017 - 06:11 PM.
#11
Posted 26 April 2017 - 06:49 PM
#12
Posted 26 April 2017 - 07:02 PM
The Lighthouse, on 26 April 2017 - 06:01 PM, said:
So, are you going to just ignore the whole history of dumpster fire that PGI has been creating since the initial release?
We have.....
-Info war
-Re-scaling
-Heat capacity
-Mini map
If you actually read through the archived posts in this forum, you can find some very repeating patterns.
1) PGI releases a completely broken, utterly insane and non-common sense ideas and says they will be implemented.
2) Community goes uproar.
3) Almost zero meaningful adjustments happen during PTS period. PGI literally ignores pretty much every recommendations from the players.
Then either three happens.
(1) PGI wisely completely dumps the idea... which very unfortunately, yields best possible outcome.
(2) PGI unwisely pushes the update, which obviously damages the game and forces people to stop play and/or stop spend money on the game.
(3) PGI does some sorts of weird compromise that just slightly worsen the situation.
Info War and Heat Capacity was (1). Re-scaling was (2), and Mini Map was (3).
All I'm saying is PGI does listen. I AM NOT SAYING THEY DO THE RIGHT THING.. Only that they listen.
The whole crux of my posts in this thread can be summarized simply here:
Give feedback. Better to have spoken and not had what you wanted done then not spoken at all. Sure, don't bother spending hours drafting proposals to redesign systems as that's a waste of time, but DO give feedback, because PGI clearly does listen,even if there's no guarantee they'll do what we want. If nobody ever gave feedback, though?
We'd have Energy Draw from PTS1. Skill Tree PTS 1. Infowar PTS1.
This whole post of yours... I don't see how that impacts what I'm saying at all. I don't disagree with where your coming from but I don't understand it's relevance.
Quote
Just look at the result of the re-scaling has done to the playerbase. It is very frequent to see the queue of light mechs are 0% late at night most of the time. It is so hard to see a mech like Panther or Wolfhound unless it is trial mechs. Entire light mechs with exception of ACH and LCT (and some extent Spider, super rarely giantstarter.) Because anyone with a functional brain cell knows that when you bring a medium-size mech but with 1/2 of the armor will die very fast and will be very useless.
On top of that, Russ and Paul 'promised' some sort of compensations for these enlarge'd mechs, which never, never happened.
Just look at the mini-map. Before the update, at least we could tell where our allies are facing, which is actually far crucial to know what type of the mechs they are using. After the hype what we have is actually slightly worse version of the old one.
And we are feeling the consequence. Since last November, matchmaker no longer really differentiate tiers because the wait time would become intolerable due to decreased playerbase. Since the game's reception the population has been downhill until very recently it is stabilized, but still not getting any new players.
Quote
No. Again, if they didn't care or listen, we'd have PTS1's of Energy Draw, Infowar, Skill Tree, the first redesigned minimap (where we couldn't even see anything on some maps due to contrast problems), all that stuff.
PGI demonstrably listens.
They just mess **** up anyways, because PGI. I'm not white knighting here. But in all these cases, feedback has lessened the harm that could have been done. ALL of them. So... Yes, people SHOULD speak up.
#13
Posted 26 April 2017 - 10:45 PM
They are reducing quirks on mechs like Spider-5V.
Yes.
The one with 2 CT energy hardpoints.
Meanwhile Arctic Cheetah gets no quirk nerfs because... well... it's had none. And it was much batter regardless.
Edited by Kmieciu, 26 April 2017 - 10:45 PM.
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