constructive critique on the development process

[eNTi]

Can we get any word from the balance team then?

i suppose not since they wait for the tools to be finished?

Trivaldi, don't get me wrong but most of the time you tell us things you've already told us before or some vague this and that. I know that you are reluctant about specifics but having to force them out of you seems counter productive. I still think that both "sides" of the argument do not really know what the other side wants of them... or... you just dodge the questions on purpose.

Whatever the case... this is part of the communication problem. It might be historically motivated but it drives a canyon between the dev team and the community. After all we should be technically the same bunch. You are the community as well. Don't you see that we have to tear each piece of information out of you guys by asking over and over and how that becomes tiresome for both parties?

We don't need PR pieces; we want nitty gritty details and ways to help you along.

[Trivaldi]

Generally I retread old ground when asked for information because there is no new information to give you. I have began new initiatives to get more information rolling out from the team but they can't happen instantly I'm afraid. Those initiatives are based on the feedback from this thread and other recent comments.

Can you point me at a post you consider to be vague and outline (as briefly as possible) where you'd consider detail to be absent. It has to be understood that we won't deliver all of the detail, that would take longer than actually achieving the deliverable being discussed. Both for me and the person working on it. I deliver the gist as this is what I can quickly get out of people without absorbing the limited time they can contribute to the project. Sometimes folks only pop up for an hour or two (sometimes less), I'd rather they use as much of that time to make progress rather than talking to me about what they hope to do in the time I'm consuming.

[eNTi]

Unfortunately we're at a bit of a stale mate at the moment, which is why there's not been a Titan patch in a very long time. There have been a number of fundamental changes to the inner workings of the game, these changes must all be delivered together. Some of these changes have roadblocks (the alpha problem causing trees to stop being transparent is a tool-chain issue) or certain elements of interdependencies still need to be finalised (PSI weapons and drones have their own cryptic Ouija, we're standardising where possible and building the specific stuff into a more manageable set of additional components) before we can release "the whole package".

As balance relies on a lot of these new fundamental changes, we cant implement better systems for guns, implants and armour until we finish the foundation work. Things are moving again though after an extended period of low motivation across the entire team. Hopefully with increasing levels of interaction with the community, we can stoke the fires of motivation and get the last pieces of the puzzle put into the place. This will open the gates for all the changes on Vedeena to come to Titan as a big bang patch, we can then rebase Vedeena as a clone of Titan (we do this every few patches) and start making smaller, incremental patches again based on our new foundation.

Hopefully this answers some of your questions, I'm sure it doesn't answer all of them.

You are becoming oddly specific without telling us how those things are connected and who is actively working on which part. The word tools and tool-chain is rather generic again. We've got a glimpse of the tools involved from the "task" posts but this still doesn't exactly tell us how they block certain vital elements of the development (like balancing). We do not know those interconnections and would like to know how you plan on unraveling them to further the process. Yet this information is always absent so I get the feeling you just don't know yourself. How is the alpha of a tree a problem in regards of changing around numbers in weapon damage? Since you can't and won't give us specific road maps we'd like to know the blockers that could potentially be resolved by a community effort. If we get more insights into those inner workings we could in turn develop an understanding of the difficulties you are facing.

What is this foundation work... is this the stuff you talked about before in your example? Why is this relevant to implement better systems? Because the resources (programming man hours) are missing?

In this instance the vagueness stems from a mixture of too much and too little information at the same time. I for one can't get a clear picture of what and especially why you are having difficulties. I do think it is better to use your time on the development rather than telling us the specifics. The flip side is that we can't know what we can do about it... if anything. I can get more examples if you like. This is just one instance were I read a lot of text and wasn't much the wiser after wards. You just said in a lot of words that it will take time and that missing resources prevent you from proceeding.

I think the task approach is what works best for me. I know what needs to be done and can try to help. It just needs a little more organization.

[Odimara Orca]

Shots fired.

I am still and will be in the future VERY thankful for the great Job you do guys.

Might I suggest:

The Golden List of the next things to implement

To expect first) Weapon Balance (or whatever ;-)) - Bragi
Hardcode Roadblocks
-PSI Module Damage -Zoltan
-etc
-etc
Tool Roadblocks
-etc
-etc
-etc
Feedback Roadblocks
-Bones
-MC5
-etc

same for what to expect second and third

Come on guys give your tasks some structure

And Balance should absolutly be prio 1

[Odimara Orca]

I mean atm it's like: "uhh.. we're doing lots of stuff and uhh.. we got lots of problems"

Well then fix one thing at a time ;-)

[JustVisiting]

Sat here quietly idling.

If you want the community to do stuff then spend 10 minutes to write a job spec including input vars etc and output vars and any specification for the content ie: if its a gui tool to create an outputted LUA script you can just hook to an npc so anyone can write missions etc without knowing any coding.

Thats great writing a tool like that takes about 10 minutes in pretty much any language great. but unless you give us an idea of how the variables / inputs are passed to the lua in the first place and the format you want the lua in ie: data structures and then how you require the output handlers.

so is it a single script to handle multiple npc's, or is it a script per npc and there's some kind of environmental state we need to be aware of on the player object to track the quest status/position of that player vs position in quest and which npc's are next. We need more data before we can do it. Give us proper spec's and information we can work with and we can do it.

Same with the exporter for blender? input output requirements, what exactly isn't working is it just the api changes deprecated previously method being called so is there now in the new api a replacement/equivilent of the old methods or have they been completely removed. where are the test models we can use for experimenting with you've asked us to write a model conversion script but not given us a model to test against it that is working as you intend it to work so we have no way of testing our work.

Again the script is pretty short and if its just a method update between api version changes its probably only a few days work at most as I doubt the logic has changed in to the handling of the bones etc.
What features are missing / new features do you want. Many of us have been professional coders for years we'd love to help but you can't vaguely say "do this" without giving us actual specs or at very least "we need something to do this and output in this format from this input format"

You're your own worst enemies when it comes to getting our help.

As for keeping us informed all your excuses are bullshit. Its not difficult for you to once a month say for example.

"Zoltan is working on xyz, he hit a road block caused by old KK code in YYY so he has to go fix that first so xyz is now on hold"
"bragi is doing UUU but he also has to finish HHH and III first"

then next week post something like
"Zoltan resolved YYY so has gone back to xyz" or "while fixing YYY we found another bug in the inventory system leading to item duplication so zoltan has gone off to fix that after he's completed YYY"

you could spend 5 minutes a week asking each dev what they're doing, what issues they've encountered and just post that here and everyone would be happy as they know you're actually doing something. you don't have to provide ins and outs of a cats arse in details just tell people at a high level what you're doing its not difficult and is coding team best practice anyway if you're professional coders depending on your methodologies you'll be doing this daily or weekly in your day jobs anyway!

[eNTi]

Sat here quietly idling.
...

well said... and put all the info in an appropriate thread in an appropriate sub forum.

[William Antrim]

This is probably the best thread I have seen in years. Genuinely.

However 3 of the posters need to seriously calm down, take a breath and actually READ what is being put because you guys are being counterproductive currently.

There is no such thing as emotion when you read text on a screen. Stop trying to infer that there is.

Be thankful your questions are being responded to and start thinking up ways you can help solve the problems listed.

Also please stop looking at the current picture with such a one-sided view. Bringing back old players will not save the game, new ones are the lifeblood. The newby experience is a core element to the game. The kids need to get hooked on the 'crack early so that they stay and pvp at the end.

Recruit them, grow them and then pk them at the GR.

Dont bash on posts when questions get answered because they arent in the minutiae you wanted, politely ask for more detail and you will be surprised how much more helpful you can be. I have been one of the most critical people on here at times and for good reason but things ARE looking up currently, dont piss all over that please.

The game seems to me like it needs a project manager and a spokesman at the moment - to deliver feedback to you guys here on the forum. If it had that (triv youre doing a great job so far) then things would be easier in my mind.

I would suggest lifting the good points out of this thread - the information from DEV side - and posting it into a new thread in Community English as i stumbled across this one accidentally and it is a gold mine of good info.

The forum could be better managed in all fairness and communication IS key but by itself it is a full time job. We need Nidd back.

[eNTi]

Recruit them, grow them and then pk them at the GR.

As we have stated lots of times... you can't grow them if they leave in frustration after they find out that the core game is broken. That is the reason why we push so hard in this particular direction. At least that's my motivation.

Also... there's a some rare traction in the community that will all but die down the very moment we stop posting our emotional responses. Maybe these emotions are a good way to a healthy relationship. Just like in a good ol couples therapy session.

I haven't posted in years and I see this as a rare opportunity before everything goes back into hibernation.

[Trivaldi]

As we have stated lots of times... you can't grow them if they leave in frustration after they find out that the core game is broken. That is the reason why push so hard in this particular direction. At least that's my motivation.

You keep using the term 'core game' without quantifying what that means. Balance is truly at the heart of the game as it dictates what does and does not work across the board. Improving this situation is something we're working to improve - regardless of roadblocks, it is what the right people for that project are working towards - and I've gone over the details many times. The gameplay experience players have from "cradle to cap" is the core game and we are working to improve that too, currently right at that cradle end where it will benefit those news players by reducing frustration and bewilderment out of the gate.

[eNTi]

You keep using the term 'core game' without quantifying what that means. Balance is truly at the heart of the game as it dictates what does and does not work across the board. Improving this situation is something we're working to improve - regardless of roadblocks, it is what the right people for that project are working towards - and I've gone over the details many times. The gameplay experience players have from "cradle to cap" is the core game and we are working to improve that too, currently right at that cradle end where it will benefit those news players by reducing frustration and bewilderment out of the gate.

I've tried to state many times what the core game or "shit people do all day" comprises of:

- Farming in mission/level spots or otherwise interesting places: This is an issue because there are a few dedicated places that are quantifiably better than others. There's more out there in the wilds if you are willing to search around a lot and explore. But more often than not you will find that just going agi cellar and bunker and doing missions is about half the game if not more. This is sad and well... needs to be improved. It is being talked about in other threads. We gave some ideas, we made clear what areas are definitely broken (like doy units cluttering the certain zones) and we didn't get any positive or negative feedback. It is imho not enough just to state that: "Yes we know those need fixing and they will be fixed eventually." Those threads are ages old and the issues have all been ignored equally as long. Which brings me back to communication.

I guess we can all agree that the mission system needs SOME revamp to make all missions more viable. Atm I think there's like 2 different useful mission types for any given level and I usually only click through the mission randomizer to get exactly those missions.

- End game - Rare farming: That's my personal gripe. I do this ... almost exclusively. I've stated the issues many times now... even with possible solutions. All this ties directly into...

- End game - Crafting and the market: Those are intertwined and both are... broken imho. Of course this again is partly due to the balancing issues, but those are also user interface and user experience issues. But it is also an issue of rampant inflation. Not to mention the hoops you have to jump through to level certain skills and required attributes. Aka 24/7 afk macro res missions... I am NOT saying it should be EASIER to level those things... just more thematic and not as soul crushingly boring.

- End game - PvP: Well... it's core game but I don't have much to say other than certain mechanics in the game are broken so that even I can tell with my limited experience. At least when I last played there were huge issues with LOS in certain (all of them) outpost terminals. Which lead to glitches and exploitation. This is definitely not my area of expertise though.

I hope you do have an idea what I mean by core game and that we basically talk about the same things?


The new player experience is neat and all... but just like other developers did this before (I remember Age of Conan doing this) you will just create a wrong impression of the real game. If you start players out with certain expectations they will leave the instance they realize that the rest of the game will be nothing like that. With the current start players will at least see the current sate of the game.

[Torg]

I've tried to state many times what the core game or "shit people do all day" comprises of...

Well, you're talking of a different playstyle than i and several others enjoy: you're going from getting a char to cap as fast as possible (aggie cellar etc) even if it feels like grinding exp, farm as many techparts as possible so you can res and const the best weapons available and get straight into PvP, with it's known flaws.

Don't get me wrong, but this is a style of playing Neocron isn't exactly good at, as the major part of the gameworld was put up for exploration and role play. So to me and quite some others RP is the core game, and OP fights (or any other fights) don't make any sense at all without proper RP context. In the meantime i'm repeatedly enjoying the different PvE situations all over Neocron's inner city and wasteland maps, and the little pieces of storytelling spread all over the gameworld by the original developers. Who did a decent worldbuilding job. And i'd even go as far as saying that i don't really care about PvP (unless it's bugged and can be exploited) as long as the huge sandbox of Neocron is still there. Yes, i agree that there isn't that much of "endgame content", but that's not a severe problem, as an MMO is meant and constructed to live by player interaction. As for me, and others, i'd like RP to be enhanced before anything else. Have fun in your playstyle, tho, and have a happy and productive day.

[Mr_Snow]

I'm hopefully returning to the game soon with the friend who got my brother and I into NC in 2002. For us, what matters is the levelling and PVE experience as we intend to start from scratch, level up and build a small rares collection together.

For you guys, or for L0ki/Hivemind, they care about end game PVP balance. For new players, they care about the new game experience.

There is no core game/gamer, and volunteers are more likely to
a)Stick around
&
b)Produce content
when working on the things and areas that they are more passionate about (within reason, and with some direction).

[eNTi]

Well, you're talking of a different playstyle than i and several others enjoy: you're going from getting a char to cap as fast as possible (aggie cellar etc) even if it feels like grinding exp, farm as many techparts as possible so you can res and const the best weapons available and get straight into PvP, with it's known flaws.

Well... as i've said. I'm not big into PvP at all. As for role playing... I did role play NC in the past but I have a hard time getting immersed if people try to "force" a certain style and that seems to happen in mmos quite frequently IF there is role play at all.

Role playing in the game world is especially hard if the world itself works against you. Many zones are utterly devoid of anything. Many zones are a complete clusterfuck of stuff. The whole lore around DoY is FUBAR. A lot of zones could tell a story but for most of them you will never know what that story is. If the developers hid a lot of lore around the wastes... I can't seem to find it. The only lore I can find is with the epic quest lines.

Don't get me wrong, but this is a style of playing Neocron isn't exactly good at, as the major part of the game world was put up for exploration and role play.

I really can't disagree more. Exploration + Leveling + Rare part hunting is something NC has been very good at in the past. It is quite interconnected. Only that the zones need more love to make it more diverse again. It's just so buggy that I can't bring myself to endure the constant glitches any more.

So yeah. There are different play styles and of course I will mostly advocate for changes that suit mine in particular.

[Drachenpaladin]

It's just so buggy that I can't bring myself to endure the constant glitches any more.

Which would be? I mean you wrote about decals in the creeper cave but... what glitches are we talking about?