41 replies to this topic

[ShoX]

So just so you know where I'm coming from, I've been playing on and off for a few years, but never quite competitive. Bought myself a Kodiak and Marauder bundle, spend a few bucks here and there, just swimming along.

Also, I worked for a AAA game developer for almost a decade. I'll get back to that later.
Recently I've been playing a lot more and frankly, while I have fully mastered my fair share of lights and mediums, I only mastered very few assaults, namely marauders, Kodiaks and my first Assault triplet, the King Crabs. I don't enjoy assaults as much as I do lights and mediums, but occasionally you just want to rip stuff up.

I love the Vulture. It has been my favourite mech since 1994 or so with the Komodo a close second. But I'm not buying two more Omnis to master the thing. I would have to save up weeks to buy two variants, level them and then stash or sell them again after leveling them far enough to unlock my masteries.

I love playing the game with my tinkered together harebrained abominations. I don't want to get chassis that don't support my build and play builds I'm not interested in so I can move as fast as I can reasonably go on the chassis I actually want.

I love the mechs I love. Some of them because the hardpoints are at a level that protects me from return fire, some of them because I rolled a War Dog on my first campaign in 1995 and my friend rolled a Marauder and I wanted a Marauder more than anything and he swapped me for it. When my Marauder doesn't work I don't get a Night Gyr, I just go back to the mechlab and fix my Marauder.

I'm the statistical norm. I'm the average guy. I'm the guy who in the movie business is labeled "butt in the seat"

Movies that get butts in seats are successful. Same goes for games. PGI wants me. That doesn't mean they don't want someone who dumpsters 2-3k in hard $ on their 200 mech collection, but you guys are already here and they want more.

Now from my experience with game designers you have different pressure points within a game for certain subsets of consumers.

For beginners, you need initial appeal, accessibility and a rewarding progression system.
For guys like me, intermediate users, you need wide variety to provide depth.
For advanced users and above, you need content releases and competitive game balance.

Note that in ascending order, these become less and less important.
If you don't have beginners and intermediates, you're not getting advanced users.
While you might see this as unfair, you need to consider that this game is not carried by its competitive userbase. You have very little visibility on social media, streaming, youtube etc. Few people stumble across MWO by accident, even fewer based on the competitive side of the game.
This game has very little to offer the casual player who walks in to dip his toes in. The skill tree changes the biggest deterrent for game growth there is at the lower level without changing the tenants of the game at the top.

The top of a game will always be dominated by a few select characters, classes, builds, comps, etc. Every game has that kind of structure.
And after the skill tree, that structure will be there. Now you may bemoan certain existing machines getting buffed or nerfed for little or no reasons, and that's fine. Especially if I had put significant time and resources into kitting out said machines in the past that would make you somewhat salty and everyone has an understanding of that.
But still, there ill be a top 1-5% competitive build system and structure. Someone finds it and wrecks face with it and there you will be playing those finely tuned drop decks that compete with the other faction well. PGI only needs to fix builds for the top 1-5% because you can't have balance below that. People get creative. People put LBX s where you should have a gauss, more lasers than you have heatsinks and all other kinds of shenannigans that put way too much variance in the game.

Now here's the bitter pill. You think you know how it's going to play out.

You don't.

You may have played this game every day for half a decade and you think "ah, I understand the future state of this game". Let me tell you.

You don't.

Now you think"stupid PGI, they think they understand the game better than I do."

They don't either.

Now here's the hard bit. Statistical analysis. There will be top builds. Builds that affect that elusive 1-5% that you're in (or think you're in). PGI doesn't know what they will be yet. They may have an idea, but you don't do statistical analysis based on predictions, at least not much.

They need you to use the system to find the statistical outliers. After they identify those, they can make sure that those 10 -15 machines get tuned in a way that allows for a better game experience.

I know you want them to balance the game for you, but they can't. I've seen this process a hundred times from the sidelines. I wasn't in development, but developers talked candidly with me and the above is true for almost all competitive games that go through revisions. Every game is in a bland-ish state before it goes to ship and only then can you amend it. It might even be intentionally imbalanced if your analysis yields no results on initial testing as imbalance fosters higher rate of iteration and optimization.

You should embrace this because this is an amazing opportunity for change for the better and by not just keeping things as they were PGI is taking great steps to break out of the game's mold.

You're playing a semi-sim online free to play shooter with nostalgia based brand appeal that is still running after half a decade. They might be better at this than you think.

I am by no means saying you should let them forget their past deeds. I've read some salt here that strongly indicates some wrongdoing on their part and by the sound of it it's been bumpy. If they screw this up, hang them high, but seriously, go explore. Try to unlearn your bias a bit.

They're trying and maybe so should you.

P.S. I love my Vulture

[R Valentine]

tl;dr
0/10

[ShoX]

No love for love. =(

[Kdogg788]

Nice book but you could have explained it in much simpler terms. It's not perfect but this iteration of the skill tree is the most honest, thoughtful attempt at balance this game has ever had. Refunds aside (I'm not going down that road again), they said that this is not the final version and changes will be made as the population adjusts to it. My main problem is not having all the map variants they said they would have years ago.

-k

[ShoX]

Yeah, granted, they're far from perfect. But still, redesigning a large chunk of your progression systems is risky. Heroes of the Storm did that recently with great success and everyone should be open about what opportunities that opens for you as a player.

[Ced Riggs]

ShoX, on 16 May 2017 - 05:39 AM, said:

...

Thing is, people are emotional, change is scary, and everyone knows everything. I agree with your OP, because it's remarkably true. But that won't stop someone from pronouncing the sky being in a downward course. Hasn't ever, will never.

Kiran Yagami, on 16 May 2017 - 05:30 AM, said:

0/10

Isn't it against netiquette to rate you own post?

[Scyther]

@OP:
Agreed with most points. I'm mostly fine with PGI's work on the game, with the occasional outburst at something really borked up or at the generally quite slow progress and time to address key issues. I think they are getting better though, and also at communicating what they are doing.

One area that I have always stressed, that you point out as key, is that if they don't have an enticing experience in place for new players then the rest of the business model lies on very shaky foundations. I think the skill tree both helps (with incremental progression) and hurts (with added complexity). Hopefully it helps more than hurts.

One other area of course is that they need a bit more micro-transaction fodder than mechpacks and MC for premium time and a bit of decoration. Again, this should be stuff that appeals to the new player and the intermediate, as they are the actual lifeblood of a game.

Good post, who knows, with luck maybe somebody at PGI is thinking along similar lines.

Edited by MadBadger, 16 May 2017 - 06:11 AM.

[Baba_Yaga]

Are you nuts! This thing sucks and yes i did the pts and hated it!

[ShoX]

Sure I'm nuts. I put 4 LBX 10s on the Kodiak and find no problem with that.

[William Pryde]

Funnest build I have ever played was an EBJ with two UAC20s. I do not use it often anymore, but I still enjoy taking it out for a spin.
Great post OP, good to see insights from someone working in the game development industry. I tend to get frustrated with the "get rid of the meta!" threads. Meta is just what the comp players are doing. There will always be a meta. That meta will always be fun for some and some will hate it.

[Beaching Betty]

Didnt read. Too long.

Also, Im looking forward for the new skill tree. I dont now why some people are QQing.. Get over it. You QQing wont stop them from releasing it.

[Jman5]

I have my issues with the skill tree just like everybody else does. I want it to be better and my last post was a critique of it. However, I'm still looking forward to it.

Mostly, I'm looking forward to general increase increase in TTK that I think we will see because:

1. Hitpoint quirks were untouched
2. Offensive quirks were nerfed/removed
3. Cooling skills are spread out.
4. Fewer Default Consumables slots = potentially fewer Strikes and coolshots (or more, who who knows how the meta goes here)
5. Survival Skill tree was introduced.
6. Firepower skill tree is massive and hard to fully invest in.

I think a lot of the hysteria will die down in a week once people actually get their hands on it. The simple fact is the vast majority of people screaming about it probably never even went on the PTS. Once it's in game and people become accustomed to it, things will settle down to a low-grumble.

Again, there are very real issues, so I'm not trying to tell people their concerns are not valid. Keep up the constructive criticism so we can help steer PGI in the right direction. Lord knows they need it. I just see the skill tree we have now as a generally positive feature.

[El Bandito]

Just wish the decision makers actively play their own game. Cause tons of decisions they made were simply out of touch.

[Clownwarlord]

I like the new skill tree.

[ShoX]

A lot of developers can seem out of touch because they can't play the game as is. Most of their play time is invested in playing a build two or three revisions away. You can see that in some Jeff kaplan interviews when he goes on log tangents and then stops himself because the thing he was talking about isn't implemented yet on live. A lot of stuff is going through prototyping and you need people to put their hands on it. In my old job we had about 4000 people in the comany with access to beta testing a 6vs6 game and most of the time you had maybe 20 players online, which meant there was only one full round playing at a time from the volunteers. Development has to log a lot of time on future builds and be it your job and your baby, you can't play something for hours in a testing environment and then go home and play until you drop. And the high profile people don't finish at 5:30 either.

[CFC Conky]

Kiran Yagami, on 16 May 2017 - 05:30 AM, said:

tl;dr
0/10

Yeah, that took me all of three minutes to read....

If you can't say it in 140 characters, don't say it at all

Anywayyyy, my view from deep in the bowels of Tier 5 is that the new skill tree will allow new players to start closing the performance gap with fully tricked-out mechs more quickly. Without new players enjoying their game, we won't have one.

Good hunting,
CFC Conky

[Gas Guzzler]

Kdogg788, on 16 May 2017 - 05:43 AM, said:

the skill tree is the most honest, thoughtful attempt at balance this game has ever had.

Lolwut?

[KevinZhang]

What company and which games did you work on?

[mike29tw]

Stop telling people what they should like.

[HoldFast-TheDreadTier5PirateLord]

I like it.

I would have preferred full cbill refund, but i'm space rich in all currencies now, so whatever.

The nodes themselves are far from what I would consider optimal and, to my mind, actually funnel people to a very specific playstyle. Regardless, I like the feel of it, and hopefully the feeling of incremental progression helps with player retention. At the top end, within the next couple days there will be a correct way to build. Meta is unavoidable, no matter the balance. Balance passes will always just shift what the meta is. Hopefully this skill system can lead to a broader meta, but we shall see.