IeptBarakatThe most difficult name to speak ingame.Join Date: 2009-07-10Member: 68107Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
The thing to always remember is, despite all the pessimism and complaints that go across game forums. If they didn't love the game or wish for it's success, they wouldn't be around.
There's just many types of fans. Some shower devs in praise, others shower in criticism. But in general, they're your fanbase and they want to see you succeed.
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
Im sure wilson is developing his own game, just to kick uwes ass.
Im raging too sometimes, but after a day its ok again. So, if you dont like in what direction the game moves, feel free to play another game that fit more to you.
Maybe ns1, i heard its free and have all the gamemechanics most of the whiners want.
<!--quoteo(post=1945960:date=Jun 23 2012, 10:53 AM:name=oldassgamers)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (oldassgamers @ Jun 23 2012, 10:53 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1945960"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Almost everytime i see you post WILSON it's always negativity to the devs. Stop having your regular attitude problem.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-Wilson+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin--><b>I was not trying to be vicious in any way.</b> As far as I'm concerned Hugh, you are just a PR guy - you are unable to answer questions or communicate about design decisions or technical tasks because you don't know. <b>That's fair enough, don't take it personally.</b><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
WUT. I'm not sure i'm even reading the same forum as some you guys. Read the godahm posts instead of always using the "he has a bad attitude" card.
*edit* Back on topic. Game has swung marine favour purely because of excess res present this build. This causes <b>sentry spam</b>, <b>nanoshield spam</b>, and higher/earlier occurence of JP's as they are technically no longer a tradeoff decision. Any and most excess res benefits aliens gain are hard countered by ARCs.
What does this mean for 50/50 balance? Expect it to swing back aliens favour once game economy and res flow is fixed. The more important question is what does this mean for <b>fun</b>? I challenge anyone to say sentry/nanoshield/JP/ARC spam is fun with a straight face.
<!--quoteo(post=1945960:date=Jun 23 2012, 01:53 AM:name=oldassgamers)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (oldassgamers @ Jun 23 2012, 01:53 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1945960"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Almost everytime i see you post WILSON it's always negativity to the devs.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Have a look at some of my earlier posts, you'll be surprised how optimistic and positive they are: <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?act=Search&nav=au&CODE=show&searchid=730199fb35fda9fd6daeb14e4eb5b525&search_in=posts&result_type=posts&hl=&st=950" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...;hl=&st=950</a>
I think the negative attitude that is seen on the forums by some players (including myself) is the result of feeling like they're not being listened to. It's like if you ignore a little kid, they will kick and scream and make a huge fuss. A little negative thing turns into a huge flame because of the lack of acknowledgement. That doesn't mean I (or any other players) need to get their own way or else they will rage. Acknowledgement does not mean agreement.
It ends up turning into this huge 'only positive praise' vs 'only negative criticism' war, that doesn't benefit anyone. IMO this is a product of the way the community is treated. I think it would benefit everyone if UWE opened the communication lines more, similar to that spyparty post I mentioned. Letting the players know what is going through their head and having more of a dialogue and back and forth with the community.
I think I'm going to stop posting now as it just seems to be annoying people more than having any positive effect. I don't want to start a big flame war over this. These are just my opinions. I'm not trying to be overly negative or rain on anyone's parade. I hope NS2 is a big success and I have a lot of fun playing it.
<!--quoteo(post=1945924:date=Jun 22 2012, 11:54 PM:name=sonix1977nl)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (sonix1977nl @ Jun 22 2012, 11:54 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1945924"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Back to the issue of balance. Win ratio of 50/50 does say that the game is balanced looking from the team as a viewpoint. It might not say anything about class balance or weapon balance. But at least team vs team, the game is balanced.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually Hugh (I may be mistaken as to who said this) confirmed that the statistics are much more complex than just win ratio. So my guess would be it includes certain weapons vs certain lifeforms and etc.
<!--quoteo(post=1945961:date=Jun 22 2012, 06:56 PM:name=IeptBarakat)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (IeptBarakat @ Jun 22 2012, 06:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1945961"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The thing to always remember is, despite all the pessimism and complaints that go across game forums. If they didn't love the game or wish for it's success, they wouldn't be around.
There's just many types of fans. Some shower devs in praise, others shower in criticism. But in general, they're your fanbase and they want to see you succeed.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The key is to be a mix of both. Give criticism AND praise where deserved.
<!--quoteo(post=1945970:date=Jun 22 2012, 07:21 PM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Jun 22 2012, 07:21 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1945970"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->IMO this is a product of the way the community is treated. I think it would benefit everyone if UWE opened the communication lines more<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
They do open up the communication lines a lot, especially when you compare it to the vast majority of devs. However, they certainly could use the QA to really address those tough design questions a little more. Like WHY they did something for instance. The free hydra controversy comes to mind. Charlie did discuss it on the QA and it did sway me slightly (though I still think stronger hydras that cost pres would work better personally) and that was huge. Another that comes to mind is when I was able to get Hugh to acknowlede the GL attachment was against the design doc and obsoleted the lmg. Then in the QA I brought it up again and Charlie said right then and there that it was a problem. Low and behold not 2 builds later we had a standalone GL (which btw is freaking fantastic). I feel they do listen I really do but at the same time I am not a professional game designer and (for the most part neither is anyone else on this forum) so I am willing to try things they implement even if I think it's a terrible idea (the slow on hit fiasco comes to mind). This is a beta, though functionally an alpha with the way changes are thrown around, so I am honestly okay with trying things. An idea can seem great on paper but in practice is awful, the same is true for the opposite as well. The only way to know is to test it, to put it out there for people to try and to gather feedback and statistics.
That said, this game is fantastic. It has it's hiccups and performance problems, but it has brought me more hours of enjoyment than any game of recent memory. Honestly, the only games I have played more (time wise) are CS and NS1. Great job UWE and I look forward to the future builds. Please don't ever be afraid of making more awful awful mistakes as that is the only way to learn and build something great.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited June 2012
Interesting you used ignoring a kid resulting in kicking and screaming. Behavior modification teaches us that if we give a tantruming child what it wants, the next time it wants it, they will tantrum again because it worked the first time.
As for feeling like you are not being acknowledged, you were. In this case directly. And yet you still shrugged him off as being unimportant despite the fact that he watches more competitive games than you do and also has the ear of the creative director.
Which makes me think of my theory ive been working on and would like to share with you:
I think some folks develop a sense of attachment that borders <i>ownership </i>in an open development like this. From the mappers to the PTers to the community and on. If your input is promised to be considered at any point.. well then, of course you are expecting it to. The issue is: the direction and decisions of this game does not belong to you or I,<b> it belongs to UWE</b>, and no matter what "kicking and screaming" we do to be "acknowledged" it <b>IS</b> their game and we are merely providing feedback.<b> <u>Feedback does not obligate an entity or person to follow it - ever.</b></u> So knowing the devs read just about every post isn't acknowledgement enough to you, direct response isn't enough acknowledgement either, you wish for your feedback<b><i> to be followed</i></b>, and this is the true source of your frustration, imo, as it potentially will never happen. But read below, as some have broken through as industry stated, but not by acting like you have.
I recommend attempting to recognize this level of attachment, and realize that the method and means in which you deliver said feedback is one of the most important things - discarding said delivery as important hurts your message and can prevent it from being absorbed, because as you said, you will be viewed as a tantruming child. If your only feedback was an email to hugh or charlie saying "Hey what those devs over there did was really awesome for X reason and it resulted in Y, i highly recommend you guys try it." I bet your message would have been not only absorbed better, but you would end up happier and less frustrated.
Again, i recommend removing that sense of ownership. While you have some degree of input through feedback that is unparalleled compared to other games and their finished product that you would typically purchase, you do not own the direction of the game - just whatever the game ends up being from UWE's decisions.
As for not communicating enough, i think you should read my quote in the previous reply again - they are unmatched.
<!--quoteo(post=1945970:date=Jun 23 2012, 01:21 AM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Jun 23 2012, 01:21 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1945970"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Have a look at some of my earlier posts, you'll be surprised how optimistic and positive they are: <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?act=Search&nav=au&CODE=show&searchid=730199fb35fda9fd6daeb14e4eb5b525&search_in=posts&result_type=posts&hl=&st=950" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...;hl=&st=950</a>
I think the negative attitude that is seen on the forums by some players (including myself) is the result of feeling like they're not being listened to. It's like if you ignore a little kid, they will kick and scream and make a huge fuss. A little negative thing turns into a huge flame because of the lack of acknowledgement. That doesn't mean I (or any other players) need to get their own way or else they will rage. Acknowledgement does not mean agreement.
It ends up turning into this huge 'only positive praise' vs 'only negative criticism' war, that doesn't benefit anyone. IMO this is a product of the way the community is treated. I think it would benefit everyone if UWE opened the communication lines more, similar to that spyparty post I mentioned. Letting the players know what is going through their head and having more of a dialogue and back and forth with the community.
I think I'm going to stop posting now as it just seems to be annoying people more than having any positive effect. I don't want to start a big flame war over this. These are just my opinions. I'm not trying to be overly negative or rain on anyone's parade. I hope NS2 is a big success and I have a lot of fun playing it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Really not sure what more we are supposed to be doing, or can do. You've seen the giant patch notes list that gets released with each patch release. Are you expecting us to go through each and every one of those changes and explain the reasoning behind them? We've had several weekly Q&A sessions now, where we explain our thoughts on a wide range of questions posed to us by the community. You are more then welcome to stop by the next one and ask your own questions.
Hugh has reached out to and met with the competitive team leaders on numerous occasions. We read the forums and answer questions when we have the time to, and while you may feel like we should have thicker skins, reading and sifting through pages of sometimes quite inflammatory and negative posts does get draining, and keeps many of the devs from spending much time on here.
You say you are not being listened to, and yet time and time again we've made changes to the game based on feedback from the community. We frequently are bringing new community members on board to be PTs. Many of the frequent issues we hear complaints about we've acknowledged in many forum posts, Q&A sessions, etc., and said we recognize them as problems, and are working on solutions. As a small team we can't fix issues like poor performance, ARC trains and turret spam overnight, but they frustrate us just as much and we are working on ways to solve them. Sometimes we are going to come up with a different solution then what you may suggest to fix these issues...again it doesn't mean we aren't listening, we just may not agree on the specific implementation for the fixes.
We cannot be in direct contact with everyone on these forums and in the community, though Charlie often gets emails directly that he responds to. We can't answer every question or concern voiced on these forums. We can't tell you exactly when, how, or if all the perceived problems in the game will be addressed. We can't, of course, make everyone happy.
We are doing our best to listen to and stay in touch with our community, and if you have specific ideas for how this interaction can work better, then we're here and we're listening, whether you believe it or not.
Deagle2 - You need to give us more of the benefit of the doubt mate :). Thank you for those kind words at the end of your post. To address your concerns:
Like most of the posts I or anyone else from UWE makes, there is much that is not said. We tend to be flamed on the forums no matter what we post. For example:
- Yesterday we managed to get 32 people in a game. A brilliant milestone! But met with negativity.
- Yesterday we teased that the exosuit was alive and moving about in internal testing. Judging by the forum posts, this was apparently a bad thing!
Here, we are being chastised for posting the good news that the win/loss ratio for both teams is falling closer to 50-50. This is, in isolation, a good thing. Clear and simple. People can theorise all they want about the deep-and-meaningful problems with balance, as if we believe that the balance is spot on because the teams are at 50-50. All you are doing is taking a small piece of isolated good news and over-complicating it, and making the devs that read the forums sad.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
TBH I dont understand how you guys do it, how do you find the strength to come read the forums when you know its gonna be filled with vicious hatred and criticism with complete disregard to the fact that they're communicating with another human being not a machine or a corporation with multiple level of communication with pawns at the bottom paid to get smacked around by the community.
You can read every where people insulting the devs by questioning their intelligence. Do you know how ###### smart you have to be in order to build a rts/fps from scratch with incredible potential and depth (compared to all the shallow fps out there), and then balance it to a 50/50 winrate. You guys dont understand that the build before the most balance build might just be the least balance one, because you just tweak a few things and then boom it all just falls in place perfectly without any warnings
Call me a ass kisser, please i beg you, redirect your hatred towards me.
ironhorse, I don't agree with your theory. In fact, I emailed Charlie a while ago about the damage system and how I thought it was flawed. He responded by saying that he appreciated my feedback but he thought my alternative was overly complicated. I accept that. I still mention it sometimes on the forums but I don't go on about it because I know Charlie acknowledged it. That was awesome. He disagreed with me, that's okay. I believe if they were continuously this open publicly, posting blogs etc. about their thought process and plans, and having that dialogue with the community then it would do a lot to reduce the overly negative posts.
I don't believe I have a sense of ownership over this game. If UWE make decisions I disagree with I can accept that. It's when there is no openness of the thought process and no dialogue with the community that causes frustration. This is nothing to do with whether or not certain features get put in the game or not. It's about communication.
I think it creates this catch 22 situation. The devs don't want to communicate because all they get is abuse, but then the lack of communication just fuels the fire.
Cory, I think the design document that Charlie updated regularly was really good. Something like that, perhaps even on the main blog just communicating the thought process behind things and where things are heading. You could also post some stuff up about stats etc. discussing what stats you're looking at and what your goals are for trying to balance things, where you see problems etc. Just being really transparent about it all.
If I say "OMG sentry guns suck!", how do I know that the devs have read that? How do I know they also think it's a problem? Maybe they think everything is fine. Maybe it's their first priority on the to do list. I have no idea. Communicating the thought process would help to acknowledge these types of things. What is the goal for sentry guns? How do you want them to play? What changes did you make to them and for what purpose? It's not about directly responding to every post, but summing things up in a blog post would help a lot. Maybe I'm asking for too much...I know you are busting your balls to try and get the game finished.
<!--quoteo(post=1945943:date=Jun 22 2012, 07:12 PM:name=ubikjam)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ubikjam @ Jun 22 2012, 07:12 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1945943"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Did get me thinking about what would happen if you fully crowd sourced a modern game instead of letting the dev's take the lead: i'm thinking a mish mash of cool ideas like laser frogs and jet packed dinosaurs bunny hopping around a de_dust remake set in space like rainbow ######'s...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is basically what happened with TF2 once they started taking community ideas for game mechanics and artwork (via the steam workshop)
It went from "the spy is wearing a fedora because he's a 1960s suit-wearing stereotype" to "the spy is wearing a kabuki mask and idiots on the internet think it's a trollface"
As for Wilson's argument, I don't want to agree or disagree (pitchforks hurt), but I will say this: I'd really like to see some devs comment on issues like bunnyhopping (skill-based movement in general), skill-indexing, replayability and a few other things. I don't mean a blanket statement like "we won't have that" or "we want that" ("we want it to be an esport!") ... I mean a short essay on why the skulk's movement is the way it is, the reasons for it, predictions/plans for the future and so on. I get really sick of reading people put words in the developers' mouth with every post (myself included), and I think it happens because we don't get the 'meaty' information we want in tweets, news posts etc.
Instead of closing 4 page threads with tons of good discussion because 2 people got into a flamewar, have some devs come in and reply to the friendlier posts. Cory does this a lot and it's always really enlightening (especially since he's the art guy, and usually speaking for the actual game mechanics really convincingly)
<!--quoteo(post=1945908:date=Jun 22 2012, 03:33 PM:name=Squeal_Like_A_Pig)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Squeal_Like_A_Pig @ Jun 22 2012, 03:33 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1945908"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->We have the individual stats for each map. So far, Docking is the most balanced map of all of them, according to the statistics -- more so then even Summit. So, ARC issues aside, the win / loss ratio on Docking has been pretty even.
Even so, we've already moved rooms on Docking to reduce the amount of siege spots for ARCs. We aren't just sitting back and letting the numbers dictate everything with the game design, but they are a useful contributing bit of information to help inform us.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Do you also take into consideration the length of time that each game goes for? Such as Game 1 Aliens Win 14.37 mins. Game 2 Marines Win 23.56 mins.
I have a feeling that if you remove the wins that happen before the 5 minute mark, which I presume are mostly Alien wins and shouldn't even be considered in the equation then look at the percentages of wins on both sides. Then look at the wins that tend to happen after the 30th minute mark, or what you consider the beginning of "late game", you will see that Marines are completely dominating the maps/game.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited June 2012
<!--quoteo(post=1945985:date=Jun 22 2012, 07:51 PM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Jun 22 2012, 07:51 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1945985"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Maybe I'm asking for too much...I know you are busting your balls to try and get the game finished.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--quoteo(post=1945986:date=Jun 22 2012, 07:52 PM:name=internetexplorer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (internetexplorer @ Jun 22 2012, 07:52 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1945986"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I mean a short essay on why the skulk's movement is the way it is, the reasons for it, predictions/plans for the future and so on. and I think it happens because we don't get the 'meaty' information we want in tweets, news posts etc.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
OK, I think I get your point - you want the WHY, and detailed explanations in essays or blogs. These exist already in charlie's publicly released high level design documents? He's released multiple, from an over arching viewpoint of gameplay down to specifics with alien commander etc.
These are the meat and potatoes you are looking for, yes? Then read the released documents? Ask for more of them, ask questions on the Q & A, but don't expect each dev to sit down and type out an essay or discussion in the forums with you, that IS asking for too much. As you said they are busting their balls making this game for most of their waking hours.
If the released documents are not a good enough a method to communicate to you what you want, (and I take it this is the issue considering the documents released already are not enough for you?) then as cory suggested, why dont you offer a solution?
I offered one constantly on the forums: I would agree that there was the constant worry of <i>"Have the devs read my post? Are they aware of the problem?"</i> before i became a PT, and it remained to some degree even after i became a PT. lol. But its a lot better being in a chatroom with them throughout the day. So this is where we PTs come in! We are a heavily underused resource! i have said it constantly (even in that quote i posted of myself back from april!) that you can always PM us, Steam us, email us any of your feedback, questions, if you dont want to wait for Q & A , or bugs etc etc. I ask the devs questions all the time that i read in these forums. And I know you <b>KNOW </b>how often i read these forums... :-D Seriously though, dont be so dismissive of people like hugh or myself. We may not be able to answer your question directly, but that doesnt mean we cant get an answer for you?? Just follow what i said regarding the <u>delivery </u>of your feedback and questions and everything will work out fine <i>just like that email you got back from charlie</i>. I will most likely just ignore rude PMs, tbh.
I am glad that you have experienced how great communication is with them by getting direct emails back from the creative director, a unique experience these days. For this reason, i take it you dont disagree how great they are at communicating, as you have experienced it. You merely want to know MORE of the inner workings and what his plans are, right? But you do understand that they are MORE transparent than almost any other developer, at least? You would think this fact would encourage people like yourself to be a little bit more lenient and understanding in their attitude/feedback/delivery? :-/
Again, you have resources at your fingertips, you need only pursue them.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I would agree that there was the constant worry of "Have the devs read my post? Are they aware of the problem?" before i became a PT, and it remained to some degree even after i became a PT. lol. But its a lot better being in a chatroom with them throughout the day. So this is where we PTs come in! We are a heavily underused resource!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not singling you out, but hell, it's even harder trying to get any information from playtesters than the devs themselves.
Majority of the time responses are "Somethings coming.", "Can't say till it's in the progress tracker.", "No/Yes/Maybe." or arguing about changes in the current live patch.
What people are saying is that it feels like what is happening on the playtester servers is behind a thick veil of shadows that the unwashed masses (non-pts) are not worthy to be privy to. Then it get dumped on the live servers and everyone is scratching their heads at how "x" could have even gone live.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited June 2012
Yes, we have to be vague about some topics due to signing an NDA. Things related to that nature may not be able to be spoken about by any PT. Then there's the part about how quickly things change. Answer: OFTEN! lol. So asking a question about what X will be like is difficult to answer as we may have tried 3 different versions that day alone -<i> let alone know what its going to be like in a week</i>. So sure, there's some of the nitty gritty that not everyone gets to experience, but if you ask me thats a good thing for <b>you guys.</b> Its often 10x more frustrating from our perspective, having to sift through the worst of it and call for it's removal before it ever reaches you. (thinks of today's PT as an example.. i so hope we can fix it before it goes live)
<i>But this doesn't mean i cant answer a question regarding the thinking behind skulk walljumping or the like, design questions etc, <b> these are the things that he seems to want.</b></i>
side note: very little actually signed up to be a PT during the open application period, sadly. I expected more people who wanted to know that "nitty gritty" to apply...
Devs certainly must hate reading the forum, even i get depressed reading them haha Here are my critical views on how devs should approach balance
1: No team should achieve all tech within the average game length (which should be around 30 minutes) Games need to have choices, choices allow strategies and planning which in turn enrich the game with variety and depth. We are currently seeing max tech every single game which is not good for replayability, as it makes all games seem the same. Phase tech should not be used every game, same with arcs and jetpacks, if you could get these stats im sure it would be blatantly obvious theres a problem here.
2: No one strategy/weapon should be too vital for a team winning, for instance, remove arcs and see what the win/loss falls to, i bet currently it would look like 30/70 without arcs which isnt very balanced. We IDEALLY should be seeing something like 45/55 ish, thats far more balanced and should be the goal, it shows that marines arent solely dependent on arcs in order to win, they can compensate with other strategies. Do the same with grenade launchers, if marines win/loss falls to extreme lows without grenade launchers, it implies that the marines rely too much on the grenade launcher in order to win and cannot compensate with other weapons. Final example, remove the flamethrower ... i bet the win loss ratio wont change at all, this implies the flamethrower is not making enough of an impact to affect the outcome of the game.
3: Design the maps around the game, not the game around the maps. I think there is alot of confusion and the devs are trying to do both at the same time, i dont think this will work. You need to pick 1 map as a core map to test all game play related balance, then all other maps should conform to achieve a 50/50 win loss ratio with just changes to the maps themselves. The devs could help community mappers by allowing them to see the stats and they can in turn modify their maps. This is a much simpler way to do balance as you eliminate map balance from interfering with game balance
<!--quoteo(post=1945955:date=Jun 23 2012, 12:40 AM:name=elodea)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (elodea @ Jun 23 2012, 12:40 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1945955"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Actually, the reason i personally try to be so critical of NS2 is because i treat it as a completed game. The difference is, these faults arn't simply different flavours and opinions as Dr. Johnson is referring to but boil down to hard mechanical problems. It's like releasing a novel with jarringly bad spelling/grammar. Simply telling someone its complete doesn't magically make them believe it was all intended and love it (unless they couldn't spell themselves).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I agree of course, I don't mean to undermine the idea of constructive or critical feedback and I hate to take sides in these things. The reference was really to the paradox that only once game dev's open up game design will people start to complain that the dev's aren't open enough. It's the way that when you ask for suggestions people turn from consumers to dev's and sometimes feel less listened to despite having more involvement than ever before. A bit of a catch 22 we could be more mindful of. I also like to shoe-horn 18th century periodicals into every discussion...
<!--quoteo(post=1945930:date=Jun 23 2012, 12:17 AM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Jun 23 2012, 12:17 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1945930"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->To illustrate what I think is good community interaction. Take a look at spyparty.com<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> <img src="http://i.imgur.com/4Lcwg.png" border="0" class="linked-image" /> Yeah. Okay. I was wondering where the hell you were getting better dev communication than here. You had to go real deep.
I don't even know why the developers take time to respond to such an intellectually dishonest post as Wilson's. It's truly laughable for anyone to claim UWE doesn't communicate with its community and the fact alone they take some of their precious development time and essentially 'waste' it on responding to these kind of posts only underlines how ridiculous such claims are.
Case in point, when I just started NS 2, I made a big thread to highlight my balance/gameplay concerns with the game. It was titled: 'Why aliens dominate NS2'. In this thread I provided a deep and constructive analysis of what in my opinion caused the alien dominance. Charlie took the time to directly respond to the thread and only a week or so later my thread was directly referenced in one of the design documents (in regards to cutting alien map control speed) That was AMAZING, I honestly have never had the ability to directly 'influence' the design of a game I love like that. (And I've been playing pc games, as well as participating in a lot of pc game forums for a LONG time)
That being said, just because I have one good idea or analysis doesn't mean all my analysis's and views on balance will be 'right' or somehow deserve to be put into the game. There's quite a number of things I truly dislike in NS 2 today, and I am very vocal about that, but I am not going to start screaming and kicking just because UWE doesn't listen to me.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think the negative attitude that is seen on the forums by some players (including myself) is the result of feeling like they're not being listened to. It's like if you ignore a little kid, they will kick and scream and make a huge fuss. .<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I'm glad you at least acknowledge you are acting like a little kid. Good job! This is pretty much like Dr Johnson, as ubikjam pointed out. Develop a game without community input and the community won't complain about not being listened to, develop a game that even remotely upholds some sense of 'direct community input' (development transparancy and the like) and you will find yourself with a community that does nothing but ###### and moan because some of their ideas (read SOME, because quite frankly a lot of the community's criticism has directly affected the decision making at UWE) don't make it in. Give them a finger and they'll want the entire hand, as you will. (I've experienced this first hand as well, being part of a mod team with a seizable on line community so I can very well relate to what some of the UWE developers would experience when reading such 'criticism')
I guess essentially what I'm saying is, you're nothing but a spoiled brat and you should be ashamed of yourself.
<!--quoteo(post=1946073:date=Jun 23 2012, 09:20 AM:name=Xarius)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Xarius @ Jun 23 2012, 09:20 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1946073"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I don't even know why the developers take time to respond to <b>such an intellectually dishonest post as Wilson's</b>. It's truly laughable for anyone to claim UWE doesn't communicate with its community and the fact alone they take some of their precious development time and essentially 'waste' it on responding to these kind of posts only underlines how ridiculous such claims are.
Case in point, when I just started NS 2, I made a big thread to highlight my balance/gameplay concerns with the game. It was titled: 'Why aliens dominate NS2'. In this thread I provided a deep and constructive analysis of what in my opinion caused the alien dominance. Charlie took the time to directly respond to the thread and only a week or so later my thread was directly referenced in one of the design documents (in regards to cutting alien map control speed) That was AMAZING, I honestly have never had the ability to directly 'influence' the design of a game I love like that. (And I've been playing pc games, as well as participating in a lot of pc game forums for a LONG time)
That being said, just because I have one good idea or analysis doesn't mean all my analysis's and views on balance will be 'right' or somehow deserve to be put into the game. There's quite a number of things I truly dislike in NS 2 today, and I am very vocal about that, but I am not going to start screaming and kicking just because UWE doesn't listen to me.
<b>I'm glad you at least acknowledge you are acting like a little kid. Good job!</b> This is pretty much like Dr Johnson, as ubikjam pointed out. Develop a game without community input and the community won't complain about not being listened to, develop a game that even remotely upholds some sense of 'direct community input' (development transparancy and the like) and you will find yourself with a community that does nothing but ###### and moan because some of their ideas (read SOME, because quite frankly a lot of the community's criticism has directly affected the decision making at UWE) don't make it in. Give them a finger and they'll want the entire hand, as you will. (I've experienced this first hand as well, being part of a mod team with a seizable on line community so I can very well relate to what some of the UWE developers would experience when reading such 'criticism')
<b>I guess essentially what I'm saying is, you're nothing but a spoiled brat and you should be ashamed of yourself.</b><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Usually when someone makes a post like that someone edits it to something like "I can't play nice with the other toddlers" and then closes the thread. Will it happen this time? Let's see...
<!--quoteo(post=1946057:date=Jun 23 2012, 07:05 AM:name=Mestaritonttu)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Mestaritonttu @ Jun 23 2012, 07:05 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1946057"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><img src="http://i.imgur.com/4Lcwg.png" border="0" class="linked-image" /> Yeah. Okay. I was wondering where the hell you were getting better dev communication than here. You had to go real deep.
Your standards are screwed up.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> LOL, no wonder they have time for lengthy explanations.
I'm personally glad with what to dev are giving us. I know that if I post something on the forums it will be read by someone, be it the dev or playtesters. Maybe the design log could get some love from time to time again. It would also be nice if the would be a voting-system for questions for the Q&A sessions.
@Xarius I don't think it was necessary to get that personal.
Why are people complaining about lack of dev communication? If the devs didn't acknowledge your idea/complaint/whatever it's because you didn't back it up with a sound enough argument/you didn't provide clear, consistent, logical reasoning behind your post, or someone else already said it/said it better. i've seen plenty of instances where the devs have made changes to the game DIRECTLY from forum thread feedback, or addressed concerns raised by posters. this thread is dumb, and i regret having opened it.
<!--quoteo(post=1946143:date=Jun 23 2012, 04:11 PM:name=Wheeee)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wheeee @ Jun 23 2012, 04:11 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1946143"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Why are people complaining about lack of dev communication? If the devs didn't acknowledge your idea/complaint/whatever it's because you didn't back it up with a sound enough argument/you didn't provide clear, consistent, logical reasoning behind your post, or someone else already said it/said it better. i've seen plenty of instances where the devs have made changes to the game DIRECTLY from forum thread feedback, or addressed concerns raised by posters. this thread is dumb, and i regret having opened it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Show me the part where Flayra explains "walljumping as opposed to bunnyhopping"
It's been discussed to death by people who have no bearing on the game's development, and no insight into how it is designed, and that's never been terribly useful.
<!--quoteo(post=1946144:date=Jun 23 2012, 04:13 PM:name=internetexplorer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (internetexplorer @ Jun 23 2012, 04:13 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1946144"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Show me the part where Flayra explains "walljumping as opposed to bunnyhopping"
It's been discussed to death by people who have no bearing on the game's development, and no insight into how it is designed, and that's never been terribly useful.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
pretty sure the dev team has talked about walljumping SEVERAL different times in different posts, and bunnyhopping (and its status as never-ever-gonna-happen-in-ns2) on several different occasions. imo bhop wouldn't work in ns2 anyway as i feel the movement/clipping on random objects/wallwalk stickiness would get in the way of having a clean bhop.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
<!--quoteo(post=1946044:date=Jun 23 2012, 04:03 AM:name=ubikjam)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ubikjam @ Jun 23 2012, 04:03 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1946044"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->and sometimes feel less listened to despite having more involvement than ever before.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I think this accurately reflects internetexplorer's desire for more information in this particular case. The devs have been very vocal throughout the years regarding Bhop and have clearly stated their stance on the matter even with reasoning behind it. But this may not be enough information for you, as you are looking to get a detailed "essay" as you said previously, on certain subjects... Which may or may not be considered overboard or asking too much etc, idk. I think you're just gonna have to either sift through very old responses or pick another topic to inquire in depth about, tbh. :-/
How about ARC friendly-fire? We saw a tweet on it but never any reasoning behind this suggestion. I am one of many who see its potential pitfalls and would like to know why UWE are opposed (if, indeed, they are) to the ARC "activation" idea, for example.
Also, it's unclear what role PTs have in the first place. Many PTs I talk to profess to only test for bugs whereas you state/imply that the team is involved much more heavily with balance decisions and even on what might be cool. While I have much love for the work that the PT team does, I'm sometimes wary of its credentials to comment on balance at all! This is in part due to individual qualifications but also due to the time spent playing dodgy builds rather than the public one. As we come closer to feature complete, it feels more and more that there needs to be some expert and distilled feedback to achieve the kind of "polish" we all want. History isn't on our side with such an idea so I just hope, if it happens, that it doesn't repeat itself.
<!--quoteo(post=1945979:date=Jun 23 2012, 03:17 AM:name=Squeal_Like_A_Pig)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Squeal_Like_A_Pig @ Jun 23 2012, 03:17 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1945979"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You say you are not being listened to, and yet time and time again we've made changes to the game based on feedback from the community. We frequently are bringing new community members on board to be PTs. Many of the frequent issues we hear complaints about we've acknowledged in many forum posts, Q&A sessions, etc., and said we recognize them as problems, and are working on solutions. As a small team we can't fix issues like poor performance, ARC trains and turret spam overnight, but they frustrate us just as much and we are working on ways to solve them. Sometimes we are going to come up with a different solution then what you may suggest to fix these issues...again it doesn't mean we aren't listening, we just may not agree on the specific implementation for the fixes.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Possibly the issue is that any given player will likely have a great many concerns or ideas, most of which don't get listened to. Even if you took a census of the entire forum, correlated the popular ideas, examined them for their validity and potential to improve the game, carefully implemented them so that they worked well together, and produced a fun game at the end, you're still going to be ignoring most of what everyone says. Most of the ideas and opinions posted are contradictory with other ideas and opinions held by other posters, and almost certainly so with the dev team themselves, therefore you must, unavoidably, do an awful lot of ignoring people whatever course you choose to take, and so what people are mostly going to feel, is ignored.
Similarly, if you post regular information about devlopment, everything posted is going to raise more questions, be missing information people think is important, contain poorly-explained ideas (or 'briefly summarised' as you would presumably intend it to be) and is generally just going to create a lot more uncertainty than it solves. Imagine the development as a big circle, and the surface is the bit the community has contact with, has ideas about, has opinions about. If you open the development up, you dig tunnels into the circle and the stuff you dig out is shown to the community. The problem is that this increases the surface area every time you do it, people see more into the process, and see all the bits that the stuff you show connects to, but they don't know about it, so they ask questions and try to figure out what it's like. The impulse however is to assume that because you are generaly very positive about what you show, that you aren't aware of the potential problems, that you're ignoring them or that you don't think they'll turn out that way. Essentially if you post a very positive message, all the potential negative implications will form in the minds of anyone who reads it, and there are a lot more potential problems than there are potential benefits in any given situation or event. 'Progress' can arguably be defined as the process of ensuring the potential problems do not occur, while ensuring the potential benefits do, and the fact that progress generally requires a lot of effort to achieve is testament to the ratio of benefits to problems.
Essentially, unless you can completely open the development (which you obviously can't, as that would involve making everyone in the community the producer) you're probably going to inspire more negativity by giving people more concrete things to be negative about. The best way to reduce negativity is probably to just insulate everyone from the project entirely. People can't complain about you overly simplifying the statistics if you don't post an opinion on them. That extends to everything more or less.
Comments
There's just many types of fans. Some shower devs in praise, others shower in criticism. But in general, they're your fanbase and they want to see you succeed.
Im raging too sometimes, but after a day its ok again. So, if you dont like in what direction the game moves, feel free to play another game that fit more to you.
Maybe ns1, i heard its free and have all the gamemechanics most of the whiners want.
<!--QuoteBegin-Wilson+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin--><b>I was not trying to be vicious in any way.</b> As far as I'm concerned Hugh, you are just a PR guy - you are unable to answer questions or communicate about design decisions or technical tasks because you don't know. <b>That's fair enough, don't take it personally.</b><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
WUT. I'm not sure i'm even reading the same forum as some you guys. Read the godahm posts instead of always using the "he has a bad attitude" card.
*edit*
Back on topic. Game has swung marine favour purely because of excess res present this build. This causes <b>sentry spam</b>, <b>nanoshield spam</b>, and higher/earlier occurence of JP's as they are technically no longer a tradeoff decision. Any and most excess res benefits aliens gain are hard countered by ARCs.
What does this mean for 50/50 balance? Expect it to swing back aliens favour once game economy and res flow is fixed.
The more important question is what does this mean for <b>fun</b>? I challenge anyone to say sentry/nanoshield/JP/ARC spam is fun with a straight face.
And what elodea said, he's not here to troll. Pretty much noone is.
Have a look at some of my earlier posts, you'll be surprised how optimistic and positive they are: <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?act=Search&nav=au&CODE=show&searchid=730199fb35fda9fd6daeb14e4eb5b525&search_in=posts&result_type=posts&hl=&st=950" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...;hl=&st=950</a>
I think the negative attitude that is seen on the forums by some players (including myself) is the result of feeling like they're not being listened to. It's like if you ignore a little kid, they will kick and scream and make a huge fuss. A little negative thing turns into a huge flame because of the lack of acknowledgement. That doesn't mean I (or any other players) need to get their own way or else they will rage. Acknowledgement does not mean agreement.
It ends up turning into this huge 'only positive praise' vs 'only negative criticism' war, that doesn't benefit anyone. IMO this is a product of the way the community is treated. I think it would benefit everyone if UWE opened the communication lines more, similar to that spyparty post I mentioned. Letting the players know what is going through their head and having more of a dialogue and back and forth with the community.
I think I'm going to stop posting now as it just seems to be annoying people more than having any positive effect. I don't want to start a big flame war over this. These are just my opinions. I'm not trying to be overly negative or rain on anyone's parade. I hope NS2 is a big success and I have a lot of fun playing it.
Actually Hugh (I may be mistaken as to who said this) confirmed that the statistics are much more complex than just win ratio. So my guess would be it includes certain weapons vs certain lifeforms and etc.
There's just many types of fans. Some shower devs in praise, others shower in criticism. But in general, they're your fanbase and they want to see you succeed.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The key is to be a mix of both. Give criticism AND praise where deserved.
<!--quoteo(post=1945970:date=Jun 22 2012, 07:21 PM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Jun 22 2012, 07:21 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1945970"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->IMO this is a product of the way the community is treated. I think it would benefit everyone if UWE opened the communication lines more<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
They do open up the communication lines a lot, especially when you compare it to the vast majority of devs. However, they certainly could use the QA to really address those tough design questions a little more. Like WHY they did something for instance. The free hydra controversy comes to mind. Charlie did discuss it on the QA and it did sway me slightly (though I still think stronger hydras that cost pres would work better personally) and that was huge. Another that comes to mind is when I was able to get Hugh to acknowlede the GL attachment was against the design doc and obsoleted the lmg. Then in the QA I brought it up again and Charlie said right then and there that it was a problem. Low and behold not 2 builds later we had a standalone GL (which btw is freaking fantastic). I feel they do listen I really do but at the same time I am not a professional game designer and (for the most part neither is anyone else on this forum) so I am willing to try things they implement even if I think it's a terrible idea (the slow on hit fiasco comes to mind). This is a beta, though functionally an alpha with the way changes are thrown around, so I am honestly okay with trying things. An idea can seem great on paper but in practice is awful, the same is true for the opposite as well. The only way to know is to test it, to put it out there for people to try and to gather feedback and statistics.
That said, this game is fantastic. It has it's hiccups and performance problems, but it has brought me more hours of enjoyment than any game of recent memory. Honestly, the only games I have played more (time wise) are CS and NS1. Great job UWE and I look forward to the future builds. Please don't ever be afraid of making more awful awful mistakes as that is the only way to learn and build something great.
Behavior modification teaches us that if we give a tantruming child what it wants, the next time it wants it, they will tantrum again because it worked the first time.
As for feeling like you are not being acknowledged, you were. In this case directly. And yet you still shrugged him off as being unimportant despite the fact that he watches more competitive games than you do and also has the ear of the creative director.
Which makes me think of my theory ive been working on and would like to share with you:
I think some folks develop a sense of attachment that borders <i>ownership </i>in an open development like this. From the mappers to the PTers to the community and on. If your input is promised to be considered at any point.. well then, of course you are expecting it to. The issue is: the direction and decisions of this game does not belong to you or I,<b> it belongs to UWE</b>, and no matter what "kicking and screaming" we do to be "acknowledged" it <b>IS</b> their game and we are merely providing feedback.<b> <u>Feedback does not obligate an entity or person to follow it - ever.</b></u>
So knowing the devs read just about every post isn't acknowledgement enough to you, direct response isn't enough acknowledgement either, you wish for your feedback<b><i> to be followed</i></b>, and this is the true source of your frustration, imo, as it potentially will never happen. But read below, as some have broken through as industry stated, but not by acting like you have.
I recommend attempting to recognize this level of attachment, and realize that the method and means in which you deliver said feedback is one of the most important things - discarding said delivery as important hurts your message and can prevent it from being absorbed, because as you said, you will be viewed as a tantruming child.
If your only feedback was an email to hugh or charlie saying "Hey what those devs over there did was really awesome for X reason and it resulted in Y, i highly recommend you guys try it." I bet your message would have been not only absorbed better, but you would end up happier and less frustrated.
Again, i recommend removing that sense of ownership. While you have some degree of input through feedback that is unparalleled compared to other games and their finished product that you would typically purchase, you do not own the direction of the game - just whatever the game ends up being from UWE's decisions.
As for not communicating enough, i think you should read my quote in the previous reply again - they are unmatched.
I think the negative attitude that is seen on the forums by some players (including myself) is the result of feeling like they're not being listened to. It's like if you ignore a little kid, they will kick and scream and make a huge fuss. A little negative thing turns into a huge flame because of the lack of acknowledgement. That doesn't mean I (or any other players) need to get their own way or else they will rage. Acknowledgement does not mean agreement.
It ends up turning into this huge 'only positive praise' vs 'only negative criticism' war, that doesn't benefit anyone. IMO this is a product of the way the community is treated. I think it would benefit everyone if UWE opened the communication lines more, similar to that spyparty post I mentioned. Letting the players know what is going through their head and having more of a dialogue and back and forth with the community.
I think I'm going to stop posting now as it just seems to be annoying people more than having any positive effect. I don't want to start a big flame war over this. These are just my opinions. I'm not trying to be overly negative or rain on anyone's parade. I hope NS2 is a big success and I have a lot of fun playing it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Really not sure what more we are supposed to be doing, or can do. You've seen the giant patch notes list that gets released with each patch release. Are you expecting us to go through each and every one of those changes and explain the reasoning behind them? We've had several weekly Q&A sessions now, where we explain our thoughts on a wide range of questions posed to us by the community. You are more then welcome to stop by the next one and ask your own questions.
Hugh has reached out to and met with the competitive team leaders on numerous occasions. We read the forums and answer questions when we have the time to, and while you may feel like we should have thicker skins, reading and sifting through pages of sometimes quite inflammatory and negative posts does get draining, and keeps many of the devs from spending much time on here.
You say you are not being listened to, and yet time and time again we've made changes to the game based on feedback from the community. We frequently are bringing new community members on board to be PTs. Many of the frequent issues we hear complaints about we've acknowledged in many forum posts, Q&A sessions, etc., and said we recognize them as problems, and are working on solutions. As a small team we can't fix issues like poor performance, ARC trains and turret spam overnight, but they frustrate us just as much and we are working on ways to solve them. Sometimes we are going to come up with a different solution then what you may suggest to fix these issues...again it doesn't mean we aren't listening, we just may not agree on the specific implementation for the fixes.
We cannot be in direct contact with everyone on these forums and in the community, though Charlie often gets emails directly that he responds to. We can't answer every question or concern voiced on these forums. We can't tell you exactly when, how, or if all the perceived problems in the game will be addressed. We can't, of course, make everyone happy.
We are doing our best to listen to and stay in touch with our community, and if you have specific ideas for how this interaction can work better, then we're here and we're listening, whether you believe it or not.
--Cory
Deagle2 - You need to give us more of the benefit of the doubt mate :). Thank you for those kind words at the end of your post. To address your concerns:
Like most of the posts I or anyone else from UWE makes, there is much that is not said. We tend to be flamed on the forums no matter what we post. For example:
- Yesterday we managed to get 32 people in a game. A brilliant milestone! But met with negativity.
- Yesterday we teased that the exosuit was alive and moving about in internal testing. Judging by the forum posts, this was apparently a bad thing!
Here, we are being chastised for posting the good news that the win/loss ratio for both teams is falling closer to 50-50. This is, in isolation, a good thing. Clear and simple. People can theorise all they want about the deep-and-meaningful problems with balance, as if we believe that the balance is spot on because the teams are at 50-50. All you are doing is taking a small piece of isolated good news and over-complicating it, and making the devs that read the forums sad.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
TBH I dont understand how you guys do it, how do you find the strength to come read the forums when you know its gonna be filled with vicious hatred and criticism with complete disregard to the fact that they're communicating with another human being not a machine or a corporation with multiple level of communication with pawns at the bottom paid to get smacked around by the community.
You can read every where people insulting the devs by questioning their intelligence. Do you know how ###### smart you have to be in order to build a rts/fps from scratch with incredible potential and depth (compared to all the shallow fps out there), and then balance it to a 50/50 winrate. You guys dont understand that the build before the most balance build might just be the least balance one, because you just tweak a few things and then boom it all just falls in place perfectly without any warnings
Call me a ass kisser, please i beg you, redirect your hatred towards me.
I don't believe I have a sense of ownership over this game. If UWE make decisions I disagree with I can accept that. It's when there is no openness of the thought process and no dialogue with the community that causes frustration. This is nothing to do with whether or not certain features get put in the game or not. It's about communication.
I think it creates this catch 22 situation. The devs don't want to communicate because all they get is abuse, but then the lack of communication just fuels the fire.
Cory, I think the design document that Charlie updated regularly was really good. Something like that, perhaps even on the main blog just communicating the thought process behind things and where things are heading. You could also post some stuff up about stats etc. discussing what stats you're looking at and what your goals are for trying to balance things, where you see problems etc. Just being really transparent about it all.
If I say "OMG sentry guns suck!", how do I know that the devs have read that? How do I know they also think it's a problem? Maybe they think everything is fine. Maybe it's their first priority on the to do list. I have no idea. Communicating the thought process would help to acknowledge these types of things. What is the goal for sentry guns? How do you want them to play? What changes did you make to them and for what purpose? It's not about directly responding to every post, but summing things up in a blog post would help a lot. Maybe I'm asking for too much...I know you are busting your balls to try and get the game finished.
This is basically what happened with TF2 once they started taking community ideas for game mechanics and artwork (via the steam workshop)
It went from "the spy is wearing a fedora because he's a 1960s suit-wearing stereotype" to "the spy is wearing a kabuki mask and idiots on the internet think it's a trollface"
As for Wilson's argument, I don't want to agree or disagree (pitchforks hurt), but I will say this: I'd really like to see some devs comment on issues like bunnyhopping (skill-based movement in general), skill-indexing, replayability and a few other things. I don't mean a blanket statement like "we won't have that" or "we want that" ("we want it to be an esport!") ... I mean a short essay on why the skulk's movement is the way it is, the reasons for it, predictions/plans for the future and so on. I get really sick of reading people put words in the developers' mouth with every post (myself included), and I think it happens because we don't get the 'meaty' information we want in tweets, news posts etc.
Instead of closing 4 page threads with tons of good discussion because 2 people got into a flamewar, have some devs come in and reply to the friendlier posts. Cory does this a lot and it's always really enlightening (especially since he's the art guy, and usually speaking for the actual game mechanics really convincingly)
Even so, we've already moved rooms on Docking to reduce the amount of siege spots for ARCs. We aren't just sitting back and letting the numbers dictate everything with the game design, but they are a useful contributing bit of information to help inform us.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Do you also take into consideration the length of time that each game goes for? Such as Game 1 Aliens Win 14.37 mins. Game 2 Marines Win 23.56 mins.
I have a feeling that if you remove the wins that happen before the 5 minute mark, which I presume are mostly Alien wins and shouldn't even be considered in the equation then look at the percentages of wins on both sides. Then look at the wins that tend to happen after the 30th minute mark, or what you consider the beginning of "late game", you will see that Marines are completely dominating the maps/game.
<!--quoteo(post=1945986:date=Jun 22 2012, 07:52 PM:name=internetexplorer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (internetexplorer @ Jun 22 2012, 07:52 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1945986"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I mean a short essay on why the skulk's movement is the way it is, the reasons for it, predictions/plans for the future and so on. and I think it happens because we don't get the 'meaty' information we want in tweets, news posts etc.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
OK, I think I get your point - you want the WHY, and detailed explanations in essays or blogs.
These exist already in charlie's publicly released high level design documents? He's released multiple, from an over arching viewpoint of gameplay down to specifics with alien commander etc.
These are the meat and potatoes you are looking for, yes?
Then read the released documents? Ask for more of them, ask questions on the Q & A, but don't expect each dev to sit down and type out an essay or discussion in the forums with you, that IS asking for too much. As you said they are busting their balls making this game for most of their waking hours.
If the released documents are not a good enough a method to communicate to you what you want, (and I take it this is the issue considering the documents released already are not enough for you?) then as cory suggested, why dont you offer a solution?
I offered one constantly on the forums:
I would agree that there was the constant worry of <i>"Have the devs read my post? Are they aware of the problem?"</i> before i became a PT, and it remained to some degree even after i became a PT. lol. But its a lot better being in a chatroom with them throughout the day. So this is where we PTs come in! We are a heavily underused resource! i have said it constantly (even in that quote i posted of myself back from april!) that you can always PM us, Steam us, email us any of your feedback, questions, if you dont want to wait for Q & A , or bugs etc etc. I ask the devs questions all the time that i read in these forums. And I know you <b>KNOW </b>how often i read these forums... :-D
Seriously though, dont be so dismissive of people like hugh or myself. We may not be able to answer your question directly, but that doesnt mean we cant get an answer for you?? Just follow what i said regarding the <u>delivery </u>of your feedback and questions and everything will work out fine <i>just like that email you got back from charlie</i>. I will most likely just ignore rude PMs, tbh.
I am glad that you have experienced how great communication is with them by getting direct emails back from the creative director, a unique experience these days. For this reason, i take it you dont disagree how great they are at communicating, as you have experienced it. You merely want to know MORE of the inner workings and what his plans are, right? But you do understand that they are MORE transparent than almost any other developer, at least? You would think this fact would encourage people like yourself to be a little bit more lenient and understanding in their attitude/feedback/delivery? :-/
Again, you have resources at your fingertips, you need only pursue them.
Not singling you out, but hell, it's even harder trying to get any information from playtesters than the devs themselves.
Majority of the time responses are "Somethings coming.", "Can't say till it's in the progress tracker.", "No/Yes/Maybe." or arguing about changes in the current live patch.
What people are saying is that it feels like what is happening on the playtester servers is behind a thick veil of shadows that the unwashed masses (non-pts) are not worthy to be privy to. Then it get dumped on the live servers and everyone is scratching their heads at how "x" could have even gone live.
Then there's the part about how quickly things change. Answer: OFTEN! lol.
So asking a question about what X will be like is difficult to answer as we may have tried 3 different versions that day alone -<i> let alone know what its going to be like in a week</i>. So sure, there's some of the nitty gritty that not everyone gets to experience, but if you ask me thats a good thing for <b>you guys.</b> Its often 10x more frustrating from our perspective, having to sift through the worst of it and call for it's removal before it ever reaches you. (thinks of today's PT as an example.. i so hope we can fix it before it goes live)
<i>But this doesn't mean i cant answer a question regarding the thinking behind skulk walljumping or the like, design questions etc, <b> these are the things that he seems to want.</b></i>
side note: very little actually signed up to be a PT during the open application period, sadly. I expected more people who wanted to know that "nitty gritty" to apply...
Here are my critical views on how devs should approach balance
1: No team should achieve all tech within the average game length (which should be around 30 minutes) Games need to have choices, choices allow strategies and planning which in turn enrich the game with variety and depth. We are currently seeing max tech every single game which is not good for replayability, as it makes all games seem the same. Phase tech should not be used every game, same with arcs and jetpacks, if you could get these stats im sure it would be blatantly obvious theres a problem here.
2: No one strategy/weapon should be too vital for a team winning, for instance, remove arcs and see what the win/loss falls to, i bet currently it would look like 30/70 without arcs which isnt very balanced. We IDEALLY should be seeing something like 45/55 ish, thats far more balanced and should be the goal, it shows that marines arent solely dependent on arcs in order to win, they can compensate with other strategies. Do the same with grenade launchers, if marines win/loss falls to extreme lows without grenade launchers, it implies that the marines rely too much on the grenade launcher in order to win and cannot compensate with other weapons. Final example, remove the flamethrower ... i bet the win loss ratio wont change at all, this implies the flamethrower is not making enough of an impact to affect the outcome of the game.
3: Design the maps around the game, not the game around the maps. I think there is alot of confusion and the devs are trying to do both at the same time, i dont think this will work. You need to pick 1 map as a core map to test all game play related balance, then all other maps should conform to achieve a 50/50 win loss ratio with just changes to the maps themselves. The devs could help community mappers by allowing them to see the stats and they can in turn modify their maps. This is a much simpler way to do balance as you eliminate map balance from interfering with game balance
well my 2c :D
I agree of course, I don't mean to undermine the idea of constructive or critical feedback and I hate to take sides in these things. The reference was really to the paradox that only once game dev's open up game design will people start to complain that the dev's aren't open enough. It's the way that when you ask for suggestions people turn from consumers to dev's and sometimes feel less listened to despite having more involvement than ever before. A bit of a catch 22 we could be more mindful of. I also like to shoe-horn 18th century periodicals into every discussion...
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/4Lcwg.png" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Yeah. Okay. I was wondering where the hell you were getting better dev communication than here. You had to go real deep.
Your standards are screwed up.
Case in point, when I just started NS 2, I made a big thread to highlight my balance/gameplay concerns with the game. It was titled: 'Why aliens dominate NS2'. In this thread I provided a deep and constructive analysis of what in my opinion caused the alien dominance. Charlie took the time to directly respond to the thread and only a week or so later my thread was directly referenced in one of the design documents (in regards to cutting alien map control speed) That was AMAZING, I honestly have never had the ability to directly 'influence' the design of a game I love like that. (And I've been playing pc games, as well as participating in a lot of pc game forums for a LONG time)
That being said, just because I have one good idea or analysis doesn't mean all my analysis's and views on balance will be 'right' or somehow deserve to be put into the game. There's quite a number of things I truly dislike in NS 2 today, and I am very vocal about that, but I am not going to start screaming and kicking just because UWE doesn't listen to me.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think the negative attitude that is seen on the forums by some players (including myself) is the result of feeling like they're not being listened to. It's like if you ignore a little kid, they will kick and scream and make a huge fuss. .<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm glad you at least acknowledge you are acting like a little kid. Good job! This is pretty much like Dr Johnson, as ubikjam pointed out. Develop a game without community input and the community won't complain about not being listened to, develop a game that even remotely upholds some sense of 'direct community input' (development transparancy and the like) and you will find yourself with a community that does nothing but ###### and moan because some of their ideas (read SOME, because quite frankly a lot of the community's criticism has directly affected the decision making at UWE) don't make it in. Give them a finger and they'll want the entire hand, as you will. (I've experienced this first hand as well, being part of a mod team with a seizable on line community so I can very well relate to what some of the UWE developers would experience when reading such 'criticism')
I guess essentially what I'm saying is, you're nothing but a spoiled brat and you should be ashamed of yourself.
Case in point, when I just started NS 2, I made a big thread to highlight my balance/gameplay concerns with the game. It was titled: 'Why aliens dominate NS2'. In this thread I provided a deep and constructive analysis of what in my opinion caused the alien dominance. Charlie took the time to directly respond to the thread and only a week or so later my thread was directly referenced in one of the design documents (in regards to cutting alien map control speed) That was AMAZING, I honestly have never had the ability to directly 'influence' the design of a game I love like that. (And I've been playing pc games, as well as participating in a lot of pc game forums for a LONG time)
That being said, just because I have one good idea or analysis doesn't mean all my analysis's and views on balance will be 'right' or somehow deserve to be put into the game. There's quite a number of things I truly dislike in NS 2 today, and I am very vocal about that, but I am not going to start screaming and kicking just because UWE doesn't listen to me.
<b>I'm glad you at least acknowledge you are acting like a little kid. Good job!</b> This is pretty much like Dr Johnson, as ubikjam pointed out. Develop a game without community input and the community won't complain about not being listened to, develop a game that even remotely upholds some sense of 'direct community input' (development transparancy and the like) and you will find yourself with a community that does nothing but ###### and moan because some of their ideas (read SOME, because quite frankly a lot of the community's criticism has directly affected the decision making at UWE) don't make it in. Give them a finger and they'll want the entire hand, as you will. (I've experienced this first hand as well, being part of a mod team with a seizable on line community so I can very well relate to what some of the UWE developers would experience when reading such 'criticism')
<b>I guess essentially what I'm saying is, you're nothing but a spoiled brat and you should be ashamed of yourself.</b><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Usually when someone makes a post like that someone edits it to something like "I can't play nice with the other toddlers" and then closes the thread. Will it happen this time? Let's see...
Yeah. Okay. I was wondering where the hell you were getting better dev communication than here. You had to go real deep.
Your standards are screwed up.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
LOL, no wonder they have time for lengthy explanations.
I'm personally glad with what to dev are giving us. I know that if I post something on the forums it will be read by someone, be it the dev or playtesters. Maybe the design log could get some love from time to time again. It would also be nice if the would be a voting-system for questions for the Q&A sessions.
@Xarius
I don't think it was necessary to get that personal.
Show me the part where Flayra explains "walljumping as opposed to bunnyhopping"
It's been discussed to death by people who have no bearing on the game's development, and no insight into how it is designed, and that's never been terribly useful.
It's been discussed to death by people who have no bearing on the game's development, and no insight into how it is designed, and that's never been terribly useful.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
pretty sure the dev team has talked about walljumping SEVERAL different times in different posts, and bunnyhopping (and its status as never-ever-gonna-happen-in-ns2) on several different occasions. imo bhop wouldn't work in ns2 anyway as i feel the movement/clipping on random objects/wallwalk stickiness would get in the way of having a clean bhop.
I think this accurately reflects internetexplorer's desire for more information in this particular case. The devs have been very vocal throughout the years regarding Bhop and have clearly stated their stance on the matter even with reasoning behind it.
But this may not be enough information for you, as you are looking to get a detailed "essay" as you said previously, on certain subjects... Which may or may not be considered overboard or asking too much etc, idk.
I think you're just gonna have to either sift through very old responses or pick another topic to inquire in depth about, tbh. :-/
Also, it's unclear what role PTs have in the first place. Many PTs I talk to profess to only test for bugs whereas you state/imply that the team is involved much more heavily with balance decisions and even on what might be cool. While I have much love for the work that the PT team does, I'm sometimes wary of its credentials to comment on balance at all! This is in part due to individual qualifications but also due to the time spent playing dodgy builds rather than the public one. As we come closer to feature complete, it feels more and more that there needs to be some expert and distilled feedback to achieve the kind of "polish" we all want. History isn't on our side with such an idea so I just hope, if it happens, that it doesn't repeat itself.
Possibly the issue is that any given player will likely have a great many concerns or ideas, most of which don't get listened to. Even if you took a census of the entire forum, correlated the popular ideas, examined them for their validity and potential to improve the game, carefully implemented them so that they worked well together, and produced a fun game at the end, you're still going to be ignoring most of what everyone says. Most of the ideas and opinions posted are contradictory with other ideas and opinions held by other posters, and almost certainly so with the dev team themselves, therefore you must, unavoidably, do an awful lot of ignoring people whatever course you choose to take, and so what people are mostly going to feel, is ignored.
Similarly, if you post regular information about devlopment, everything posted is going to raise more questions, be missing information people think is important, contain poorly-explained ideas (or 'briefly summarised' as you would presumably intend it to be) and is generally just going to create a lot more uncertainty than it solves. Imagine the development as a big circle, and the surface is the bit the community has contact with, has ideas about, has opinions about. If you open the development up, you dig tunnels into the circle and the stuff you dig out is shown to the community. The problem is that this increases the surface area every time you do it, people see more into the process, and see all the bits that the stuff you show connects to, but they don't know about it, so they ask questions and try to figure out what it's like. The impulse however is to assume that because you are generaly very positive about what you show, that you aren't aware of the potential problems, that you're ignoring them or that you don't think they'll turn out that way. Essentially if you post a very positive message, all the potential negative implications will form in the minds of anyone who reads it, and there are a lot more potential problems than there are potential benefits in any given situation or event. 'Progress' can arguably be defined as the process of ensuring the potential problems do not occur, while ensuring the potential benefits do, and the fact that progress generally requires a lot of effort to achieve is testament to the ratio of benefits to problems.
Essentially, unless you can completely open the development (which you obviously can't, as that would involve making everyone in the community the producer) you're probably going to inspire more negativity by giving people more concrete things to be negative about. The best way to reduce negativity is probably to just insulate everyone from the project entirely. People can't complain about you overly simplifying the statistics if you don't post an opinion on them. That extends to everything more or less.