286 replies to this topic

[Krellek]

I normally enjoy reading these but this last set of questions felt like a bunch of softball lob's. You guys had weeks to go over a few hundred questions, and those were the ones you guys went with...

:-(

I understand why you don't tend to answer ECM questions or similar issues, but there were dozens of really good questions you could have gone with.

Show a bit of depth you guys.

[steelblueskies]

Dropdeadfred, on 03 January 2013 - 02:01 PM, said:

This is my first time finding out about the Dev Q&A forum posts. The vitriol over them not answering any questions on ECM are valid, IMHO. I've posted elsewhere that I'm one of those players that is abusing the hell out of ECM and it's OP'ness currently. It's at the point that why even swap out of a mech that has it? It only hurts me, I gain nothing from not using it.

ECM is brokenly good, pure and simple. Here's a question to answer, is this your first game ever? I'd love to know what other games these developers have made. Putting in something so over the top, for so little cost, what were you thinking? I'm in the industry, and I can't believe this even got past the morning meeting, so to speak.

they brought the world gems like duke nukem forever(bryan, though to be fair that project had more hands on its development lifetime than a dolla ********), or bass pro shops aaaaaaaand..(this should surprise noone) several racing games(need for speed multiple titles. days of thunder..).

[B B Wolfe]

steelblueskies, on 03 January 2013 - 04:13 PM, said:

they brought the world gems like duke nukem forever(bryan, though to be fair that project had more hands on its development lifetime than a dolla ********), or bass pro shops aaaaaaaand..(this should surprise noone) several racing games(need for speed multiple titles. days of thunder..).

They only worked on the multiplayer bits of duke nukem forever...

[ICEFANG13]

To be honest, I would consider this to be the first 'real' game they are completely doing.

[Redoxin]

Very non-committal answers. Disappointing.

But I cant believe you guys really expected the ECM "question" to be answered. That was no real question, just the usual balance whine. I mean its ok to voice these concerns, but to seriously expect an answer to that in a Q&A is straight up dumb lol.

Edited by Redoxin, 03 January 2013 - 05:11 PM.

[Krellek]

Franklen Avignon, on 03 January 2013 - 03:00 PM, said:

"Q: Well as I asked in (StD29), will any of the Spider variants be able to equip the Guardian ECM? [Monsoon]
A: I'll have to ask DavidB when he's back from his holiday (next week). [Garth]"

Why is this even in here as a question if you can't answer it?

+1

I know right?

[Kobura]

Can you pick questions that you have answers to next time? At least the one about whiskey is an answer we can take to the bank. Everything else is greasier than my hair after a month without running water.

[Savroix]

Lonestar1771, on 02 January 2013 - 06:17 PM, said:

Please form actual sentences or stop posting.

I don't know anything about the person you are replying to, but you do realize that there are people out there who, through injury or development, lack the ability to communicate as effectively as others, right? You're not that ignorant, are you?

The person showed no hostility towards you or others. Why don't you try acting as mature as him at least?

Edited by Savroix, 03 January 2013 - 07:37 PM.

[Jakob Knight]

Garth Erlam, on 02 January 2013 - 12:42 PM, said:

Q: Do lights take the same amount of damage as other non-light mech classes from other mech classes? [Rooikat]
A: Yes, they do. Mechs all use the same weapons, so different class/variants wouldn't do different damage. [Garth]

Is it me, or did Garth sound like he misread/misunderstood the question? The question was asking if light mechs take damage exactly like other mechs (no hidden mods on their defenses), but it sounds like he is answering that light mechs -do- the same damage as other mechs. In short, he answered about the toughness of light mechs by saying their weapons are the same as other mechs....which is not an answer.

Edited by Jakob Knight, 03 January 2013 - 07:41 PM.

[ICEFANG13]

Most of them were not answers to be fair.

[ObsidianSpectre]

Franklen Avignon, on 03 January 2013 - 03:00 PM, said:

"Q: Well as I asked in (StD29), will any of the Spider variants be able to equip the Guardian ECM? [Monsoon]
A: I'll have to ask DavidB when he's back from his holiday (next week). [Garth]"

Why is this even in here as a question if you can't answer it?

To be fair to Garth, I think he's trying to make clear his intention to answer it when he can, even though he can't give an accurate answer right now. I don't think he should avoid doing this.

[Lupus Aurelius]

Over 300 likes on Tolkien's question about ECM...

Original ECM feedback thread of 102 pages ( quietly removed from the Feedback forum and move to the archive, though NONE OF THE OTHER THREADS IN THAT FORUM WERE CLOSED AND MOVED)...

New ECM Feedback thread of 42 pages...

Innumerable threads concerning the negative aspects of ECM imbalance...

And not a single response in "ASK THE DEVS".  Really?!?!?!?!  It's been over  month now, no one can say that there has not been sufficient time to evaluate all the input to be had on this item.  At first, I truly thought that there would be some response by now.  And stop quoting the PCGamer article, that is not addressing the community, nor the valid concerns that have been expressed.

Ignoring the issue is not going to make it go away, and it will not stop or slow down the posts concerning ECM.  This is by far the MOST DISCUSSED ISSUE ON THESE FORUMS, and no one can deny that.  AND YOU NEED TO ADDRESS IT.

Edited by Lupus Aurelius, 03 January 2013 - 08:19 PM.

[DragonsFire]

Lupus Aurelius, on 03 January 2013 - 08:18 PM, said:

Over 300 likes on Tolkien's question about ECM...

Original ECM feedback thread of 102 pages ( quietly removed from the Feedback forum and move to the archive, though NONE OF THE OTHER THREADS IN THAT FORUM WERE CLOSED AND MOVED)...

New ECM Feedback thread of 42 pages...

Innumerable threads concerning the negative aspects of ECM imbalance...

And not a single response in "ASK THE DEVS". Really?!?!?!?! It's been over month now, no one can say that there has not been sufficient time to evaluate all the input to be had on this item. At first, I truly thought that there would be some response by now. And stop quoting the PCGamer article, that is not addressing the community, nor the valid concerns that have been expressed.

Ignoring the issue is not going to make it go away, and it will not stop or slow down the posts concerning ECM. This is by far the MOST DISCUSSED ISSUE ON THESE FORUMS, and no one can deny that. AND YOU NEED TO ADDRESS IT.

As I noted earlier, simply because it is the 'most discussed item on the forums' by the vocal minority to be found here does not mean that it is unbalanced or that the entire MWO playerbase agrees with that position. Game forums in general are frequented by only a fraction of that particular game's players, and MWO is no exception. To make a game based on said fraction and their feedback would be a terrible decision, especially if data being gathered over the course of gameplay tells an opposite story.

I'm willing to admit that I could be incorrect, and the gameplay data is telling them it's unbalanced and they won't remove it because it's their 'pet feature' (seriously, one of the more asinine positions I have seen). I have yet to experience this ECM boogeyman that's being proposed however, either in solo Pub drops, 4 man Pub drops, or 8 man group drops.

Again, while feedback on the forums is important and certainly taken into account, it's not and shouldn't be the deciding factor on how the game is developed if it does not concur with the data.

[Lonestar1771]

Savroix, on 03 January 2013 - 07:32 PM, said:

I don't know anything about the person you are replying to, but you do realize that there are people out there who, through injury or development, lack the ability to communicate as effectively as others, right? You're not that ignorant, are you?

The person showed no hostility towards you or others. Why don't you try acting as mature as him at least?

What you say is true but has absolutely no bearing in this situation as it is rather obvious that he has no trouble forming sentences as evidenced by his later posts. It's more often than not laziness or ignorance as reasons to communicate ineffectively. They make typing systems for disabled not to mention most modern browsers include some form of spell check.

I'm not being callous just being honest. If you want someone to take you seriously than grammar and correct spelling are a must.

Now I did not initiate the hostility. He was the one who said to kiss his biracial butt (why he had to mention the fact he was bi-racial is beyond me). Now the whole point of the general discussion forum is to have a discussion about things and it's really hard to do so when people make incoherent posts. Sure I could have ignored it, but I chose not to. I'm not asking for perfect English as I know my own skills are lacking in the area, but is it wrong of me to expect some semblance of something that is readable, in a forum, without having to decipher it?

[ICEFANG13]

DragonsFire, on 03 January 2013 - 08:55 PM, said:

As I noted earlier, simply because it is the 'most discussed item on the forums' by the vocal minority to be found here does not mean that it is unbalanced or that the entire MWO playerbase agrees with that position. Game forums in general are frequented by only a fraction of that particular game's players, and MWO is no exception. To make a game based on said fraction and their feedback would be a terrible decision, especially if data being gathered over the course of gameplay tells an opposite story.

I'm willing to admit that I could be incorrect, and the gameplay data is telling them it's unbalanced and they won't remove it because it's their 'pet feature' (seriously, one of the more asinine positions I have seen). I have yet to experience this ECM boogeyman that's being proposed however, either in solo Pub drops, 4 man Pub drops, or 8 man group drops.

Again, while feedback on the forums is important and certainly taken into account, it's not and shouldn't be the deciding factor on how the game is developed if it does not concur with the data.

Isn't that the same silly argument that 3rd person advocates used? The forums are a good sample size of the real needs of the fan base. Its like saying that we should add 3rd person, and keep ECM like this, because more people disagree with it.

[Windies]

B B Wolfe, on 03 January 2013 - 04:33 PM, said:

They only worked on the multiplayer bits of duke nukem forever...

Not to fan the flames or anything but, The multiplayer portion of DNF was considered the worst part of it. Horribly unbalanced and buggy with tiny maps. It makes sense when you consider the same issue's are in MW:O. It's also not a confidence booster when you use the worst part of something bad as an excuse.

I'm curious why they have these Ask the Dev things when all they ever say is, "in the future" and then give direct answers to what kind of meat, beer, food, car etc... choice is their most preferred.

Edited by Windies, 03 January 2013 - 10:38 PM.

[Kaijin]

DragonsFire, on 03 January 2013 - 08:55 PM, said:

Game forums in general are frequented by only a fraction of that particular game's players, and MWO is no exception.

National opinion polls - You know how they work? Every single person is not polled. A tiny fraction is, and is considered to be representative of the whole. Now a game's forum users are not representative of the whole in that they are the gamers that are more passionate about the game than the average player. That passion is demonstrated by their participation on the game forums. That passion also translates into the formation of player-led units, player-run events, player-inspired content, etc. etc. - Basically the community lifeblood of a MMO. The players on the forums are the players that matter when it comes to whether a game such as this is going to succeed or fail.

If the devs didn't feel this to be true, we'd have 3rd person in matches already, or rather, they would have introduced 3rd person into matches and their game would have been abandoned by 80% of it's player-base.

[Windies]

Kaijin, on 03 January 2013 - 10:31 PM, said:

If the devs didn't feel this to be true, we'd have 3rd person in matches already, or rather, they would have introduced 3rd person into matches and their game would have been abandoned by 80% of it's player-base.

Give it time. What I mean by that is that they've already made statements that adding 3rd person would open up the game to a rather large player base ( World of Tanks) and since most of the forum goers are hooked and they already got your money, Why wouldn't they pursue more money?

Edited by Windies, 03 January 2013 - 10:41 PM.

[Mordin Ashe]

DragonsFire, on 03 January 2013 - 08:55 PM, said:

As I noted earlier, simply because it is the 'most discussed item on the forums' by the vocal minority to be found here does not mean that it is unbalanced or that the entire MWO playerbase agrees with that position.

It appears to me that you missed the point. Agreeing on something is not the milestone devs should achieve, so you don't really need to ask the non-vocal majority. What should be interesting is finding out if the feature helped the whole game community or not, and doing that can be done easily by devs. All you need to do is to look at numbers, find out if anything changed. Players don't have the access to those, but devs do and the easy way to work with it is to compare theories of vocal forum minority to hard data. If they work well together, you have a match. This way the vocal minority can help devs with their work, and all that without any need to ask who agrees with who.

All this is, however, not necessary for evident and simple ideas like "ECM hurts the gameplay". Non-vocal majority suffers from this too, because now there is a very simple tactics ECM introduced which doesn't require any particular skill to perform and which can't be countered by skilled playing. Not in PUGs. PUGs will never be about communication, but more about eight different folks, each trying to do his best. The only way to counter ECM is effective team play, meaning the use of TS and higher than average level of team coordination. Not a problem for groups, yes a problem for PUGs. This means that the PUGs are who suffers most from ECM. If this hypothesis is true or false isn't difficult to figure out, just look how many people not usually contributing to the forum culture bother themselves to log in and write a reply or two into ECM threads. Those are the members of non-vocal majority suffering the worst of ECM. If you see many of them, you have a match. And I see a lot of them.

[LionZoo]

Yes only the devs have data and we have to go on what we observe as well as anecdotal evidence. However, even a response along the lines of "our data shows that ECM is working as intended" would've given the player base some feedback. Instead, we get complete and utter silence. When you feel you're purposely being ignored, that can be very frustrating.

As for my pet idea speculation, like I said that is complete and pure speculation resulting from the total silence. However, if you think features in products are implemented purely rationally and that pet projects, etc. don't factor at all in the industry, then you haven't worked much in the product development industry. Pet ideas/projects get inserted all the time.