Mechanics first please
Albe23
Join Date: 2012-03-24 Member: 149272Members
Join Date: 2012-03-24 Member: 149272Members
<div class="IPBDescription">My two cents</div>So, I've been around since UWE first started 'pre-orders' (just not on forums) for this game and this is my observation of the progression thus far. UWE is spending too much time worrying about balance. Competitive games in a beta? I guess you can get those going, but until all of the mechanics/performance issues are taken care of it's not something I could be invested in. Yes the lerk is teribad and mairnes have almost zero chance at winning because most of the creative energy from UWE has been spent on aliens thus far. I will complain like there is no tomorrow during the game. However, having a fully fleshed out marine tech tree, bugs, performance issues, and what not should be the main priority. I could care less about balance especially when any time an alien comes hopping through the frame rate stutters. Or when the server dies because of the mega spam of turrets/hydras or other buildings.
Comments
I'm sure they do as well, but the vids, posts, and change logs show they are spending a good deal of time worrying about it.
if you look at the tweet, it says that they didn't have time to playtest much. i guess balance is just a natural part of the test-games (which happen either way, to see if it's working in a rather stable way) and i don't think they delay the patches just for the sake of balance. which is good, because these kind of tweaks can already be obsolete in the next patch.
on the other hand, number-fiddling clearly takes a back seat to implementing a panacea every patch, to help out the side that wins every game already
some things clearly can't be number-fiddled the way they should be, either - evidenced by having to completely revamp one side's resource model instead of tweaking various coefficients and things
if you don't have solid mathematical models for designed things like economies, you can waste a lot of time trying to fix problems in them
It takes less than 5 to change the numbers, but it takes a few games to even test that change. As a playtester we have limited time to run full out games considering that we have to test all the bug fixes that were implemented that day. The most we can do is make sure that the change doesn't overly break the game and move on the the bigger fish that need frying. Soon there will be people dedicated to just balance, but that will not be until it's content complete.
<!--quoteo(post=1930532:date=Apr 26 2012, 09:35 PM:name=Wheeee)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wheeee @ Apr 26 2012, 09:35 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1930532"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->not sure that they're worrying so much about balance as they're worrying about the impact of mechanics on balance. as in, they're still in the process of creating the mechanics, and seeing how these mechanics work out. right now any balance concern is 0% valid because of the performance issue.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You are correct, sir!
I do agree performance needs to be a priority, and until this is addressed, a lot of balance issues are redundant (perhaps not 0% valid though). For example, recently the lerks speed decreased, presumably because they're hard to kill. However, low performance and the recent drop of FPS in the latest build (especially when bile bombs are being dropped) could be the contributing factor. Perhaps lerks will be a lot easier to kill once everybody has a stable 60 FPS (rather then them teleporting all over the screen every now and then).
The same could be said for remaining game mechanics still left to be put in. They definitely have an impact on balance. Using the 'lerk is hard to kill' scenario again. Right now the only gun we have to kill them with is shotguns (which can be frustratingly difficult when performance is low) - unless you count rifles (though they're the standard weapon). Good luck landing a hit with a grenade launcher, or killing them with a flamethrower (too weak). However, the introduction of exosuits should make it a lot easier to deal with lerks. Currently there is no hmg like in ns1, and these could dispatch of lerks quite quickly.
Conversely, a game mechanic that will have the opposite effect on this lerk issue is celerity (lerks will be even faster, will make them even harder to kill, game has to be balanced accordingly).
I think, however, the developers know all this (that performance and remaining game mechanics will have a huge impact on balance), but as somebody said, making balance changes cant really be that difficult or time consuming to them, and as a result, its better done on the fly. Game mechanics are more time consuming to introduce (as you said, they're still in the process of creating them), as well as improving the performance of the game. I would like to see Shift chamber however, it cant be that hard to get in the game. And at least there would be a full picture of alien upgrades to account for when balancing.