280 replies to this topic

[Urfin]

This is a truly special case of alternative game design. Was the goal to annoy people and drive away the few that are still playing? Because you sure did.

And no, this does not warrant testing, just like you don't need to test a gun with half its barrel chopped off to know it's gonna have less range. It's not controversial, or a complex matter.

[Steve Pryde]

Trennbull, on 27 July 2018 - 04:30 AM, said:

I am only going to write this once.

To solve all the problems with Clan High Alphas there is a very simple solution - also no need to nerf the Clan-Gauss ...


LIMIT THE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF HEATSINKS A CLAN MECH CAN TAKE TO A REASONABLE LIMIT AND LEAVE EVERYTHING ELSE UNTOUCHED.

Rofl, that's even more worse than what PGI is trying to test.

[Mighty Spike]

Average Sloth, on 27 July 2018 - 05:01 AM, said:

Stupid question: Was there any statement as to when exactly on friday the PTS would go live? Friday is more than half over here. An while we are at it: How long wil this PTS stay online?

Sorry if it was stated earlier, i did not see it right now, maybe it is just me being blind again.

yeah.Test server offline.. So typical pgi....

Edited by Mighty Spike, 27 July 2018 - 07:47 AM.

[Napoleon_Blownapart]

Jackal Noble, on 25 July 2018 - 10:19 PM, said:

I have never seen a document so rife with inconsistencies.

[Racerxintegra2k]

I thought PGI said balance was at the best its ever been ... if so whats with testing out extreme measures in balance ?

[BALIander]

PGI, thank you for keeping up the tumble!

Can't say all those changes make much sense to me* but I am very much sure the minute you stop moving - people will get comfortable and after a short while, very much bored.
We don't want that.

Also of relevance for my personal feeling and playstyle, it feels just numb to play against the same perfected mechs and strategies - over and over again.
I like to break them - strategies as well as mechs.

Movement to the setup in any form keeps cracks and weak spots to exploid in any strategie and build.

So - PGI - keep doing my bidding.



*Singular thought on clan pulse weapons:
Tonnage is a matter. A matter that seems to be forgotten over usage of hardpoints when it comes to pulse weapons. Pulse lasers need to overperform in direct comparison to er or standard lasers.
Their weight is much higher - thus - should be outperforming other lasers. Be it as it may....

Keep moving :thumbs-up:!

[tee5]

Looks like you corrected the spelling errors of Sliphinir and veriant.


But there are still errors in your original Post. Like the C-Large Pulse Laser. Why have you not corrected this error?

Clan Large Pulse Laser.

In the Text it says: Duration increased to 1,3 (from 1,9)
and in the table it says: 1,2 1,09

[MiZia]

Tarogato, on 27 July 2018 - 04:54 AM, said:

You don't assess imbalances in the game by looking at stats and spreadsheets. You assess by playing the game. My experience playing the taught has taught me that cERML > IS ERML.

You only use the stats/spreadsheets when it comes time to decide exactly how to fix the issues you've discovered while playing the game.

Ye thats why my last sentence is for. 7 dmg may be to much for a 1 ton weapon.
Maybe reducing it to 6.25 like on Test Server gives the laser 25% advantage.. but then heat, duration and the other stats should be adjusted also to factor it.

[Daggett]

Tarogato, on 27 July 2018 - 04:54 AM, said:

You don't assess imbalances in the game by looking at stats and spreadsheets. You assess by playing the game. My experience playing the taught has taught me that cERML > IS ERML.

You only use the stats/spreadsheets when it comes time to decide exactly how to fix the issues you've discovered while playing the game.

It's not that easy. For a dev playing their own game is not efficient enough to be the main input for balance. It's much better to watch others playing your game if possible. This has lots of benefits:

• You are not tied to the skill-levels of your employees. It's rare that a dev has employees who can play at the highest level of play. Sure they know all mechanics inside out, but without excessive training in their spare time they won't have anyone who can assess high-level gameplay. Same is true for things like new-player experience. At some point all employees have already played the game and are much less suited to assess how the game feels for newbies.
  
• You are not distracted by the gameplay and can therefore much better analyze what is happening.
  
• You can skip time-consuming loading and walking sequences.
  
• You often get lots of feedback from player commentaries.

Sure, i can't tell if PGI does indeed watch the solid amount of videos/streams this community produces, but in my eyes developers should play less and watch more when it comes to things like balancing or creating good player experiences. You rather play by yourself to test things that are not live yet, but not so much to assess the current state of the game.

So in my experience both data (spreadsheets) and observation are equally important for discovering issues as well as fixing them in the best way possible. Playing your own game however usually does not help much, at least not for smaller studios like PGI.

Edited by Daggett, 27 July 2018 - 08:16 AM.

[Tarogato]

Daggett, on 27 July 2018 - 07:40 AM, said:

It's not that easy. Playing your own game is not efficient enough to be the main input for balance. It's much better to watch others playing your game if possible.

Sure, i can't tell if PGI does indeed watch the solid amount of videos/streams this community produces, but in my eyes developers should play less and watch more when it comes to things like balancing or creating good player experiences. You rather play by yourself to test things that are not live yet, but not so much to assess the current state of the game.

I don't disagree. But that's not easy either. Who do you watch? Are you as familiar with their biases as you are your own? Either you understand your game first-hand, or you submit yourself wholly to the elaborate web of politics that is "player feedback." And if you're going to resort to that? You have to be REALLY good at it to get away with it.

[MovinTarget]

I would have to agree. Developers have a certain relationship with their own code and will approach usage based on their own understanding of whats going on inside the "black box" that normal users lack.

It makes it hard to effectively test their own code extensively because they've developed their own approach and it's often not the same as what a normal user.

Beyond that, speaking from experience, it is often hard to look at the macro when you spend most of your time focused on the micro. People will hem and haw that you can do both, but once you get into massive sets of dependencies and unknowns, its REALLY hard to account for every possible scenario (i.e. EBJ cockpit goes bonkers when last I checked EBJ wasn't supposed to be touched in the patch).

This is why I'm glad we had a mix of mech/weapons use on the PTS, its not just about what they consciously changed but what unintended changes slipped in. It's a part of modern programming and unless you want zero shared code (leading to games that are bloated to insane levels) and even worse response times for fixes (because now instead of one fix in a single bit of shared code, you have to hunt all over for every possible recurrence and evaluate independently!)... PTS testing is really the best way to test stuff. Even the "big" games do it.

[Wing 0]

Tarogato, on 27 July 2018 - 04:54 AM, said:

You don't assess imbalances in the game by looking at stats and spreadsheets. You assess by playing the game. My experience playing the taught has taught me that cERML > IS ERML.

You only use the stats/spreadsheets when it comes time to decide exactly how to fix the issues you've discovered while playing the game.

Agreed. Numbers only do one specific thing in game. You need to play around with things first and get a feel for it. That's been a problem were having with PGI devs for sometime and they refuse to Play the game with the public. If they are sending Sean Lang or Bombadil to do it for them, They don't count. They are not game devs.

There are others mechs out there and I wont name em out but there are a few others that do indeed need nerfing but knowing PGI they don't exactly play the game.

BTW: HOLY **** 15 pages in such a short period of time. Well done PGI. "Achievement Unlocked: Ignoring the feed back"

Edited by Wing 0, 27 July 2018 - 09:16 AM.

[Jackal Noble]

Tarogato, on 27 July 2018 - 04:54 AM, said:

You don't assess imbalances in the game by looking at stats and spreadsheets. You assess by playing the game. My experience playing the taught has taught me that cERML > IS ERML.

You only use the stats/spreadsheets when it comes time to decide exactly how to fix the issues you've discovered while playing the game.

So just wipe the slate clean and make every IS laser inherently superior to Clan lasers. Cool.

[Apollo777]

Still offline!
When starts this PTS?

[Cy Mitchell]

No bribe.....errr I mean "compensation" for testing on PTS this time? I do not personally care about it but it did serve to provide for good populations and relatively quick matches on PTS 1.0.

[MovinTarget]

Rampage, on 27 July 2018 - 09:57 AM, said:

No bribe.....errr I mean "compensation" for testing on PTS this time? I do not personally care about it but it did serve to provide for good populations and relatively quick matches on PTS 1.0.

Well, they announced the ...compensation... after the fact last time so perhaps that will happen again...

[ZortPointNarf]

Yondu Udonta, on 27 July 2018 - 02:13 AM, said:

Get out of here you ******* ******. The biggest laser alpha is 78 with 2 HLL and 6ERML. If you don't know your **** you should get out of this thread. I swear ******* like you is what leads to the devs thinking that they should nerf clan lasers to appease people like you. Tier 1? Lul.

You seem to be under the impression that it is solaris, its not 1v1, if somebody else looks at that medium angrily it will fall over dead after a 60-70 alpha to the CT. Lets not even get started on the ping peasants that have to deal with delayed game state updates. There is no time to twist, by the time you get informed of taking damage, half of it is already dealt. I don't find the alphas all that annoying, but in conjunction with cool shot they are a bit op in most games.
Personally I would just get rid of all consumables except UAVs.

[Grus]

Arng and i had to work today.. i wont be on till late tonight.

[Grus]

ZortPointNarf, on 27 July 2018 - 11:23 AM, said:

You seem to be under the impression that it is solaris, its not 1v1, if somebody else looks at that medium angrily it will fall over dead after a 60-70 alpha to the CT. Lets not even get started on the ping peasants that have to deal with delayed game state updates. There is no time to twist, by the time you get informed of taking damage, half of it is already dealt. I don't find the alphas all that annoying, but in conjunction with cool shot they are a bit op in most games.
Personally I would just get rid of all consumables except UAVs.

Avrage reaction time is .2 to .3 seconds. Burn time for full damage of most clan laser (micros dont count because they are garbage) is 1 second or more. (cERSL has the same burn time as a IS LL) so if twiting off clan lazer vomit is the issue then its a pilot problem not a tech problem. You cant twist off the Gauss/ac hits, just shield with another component, but you can with cUAC's.

[ZortPointNarf]

Grus, on 27 July 2018 - 11:32 AM, said:

Avrage reaction time is .2 to .3 seconds. Burn time for full damage of most clan laser (micros dont count because they are garbage) is 1 second or more. (cERSL has the same burn time as a IS LL) so if twiting off clan lazer vomit is the issue then its a pilot problem not a tech problem. You cant twist off the Gauss/ac hits, just shield with another component, but you can with cUAC's.

Now add .2-.3 for the ping peasants? Not all players experience the game the same, not everyone sits on the servers. I used to play at a best ping to EU at 193ms, believe me, I know the difference now that I have a 40ms to the EU server. Different game, feels completely different. Getting deleted by high alphas at ping is not fun for most of the world. How big that player base is I do not know, but its not just merica players playing this.