constructive critique on the development process

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04-04-16, 14:17
RogerRamjet

Quote:

Originally Posted by eNTi

another big part is the market. especially for rares. with the right setup you can farm them like mad. as a pve player and farmer myself i think the distribution is pretty bad atm. mobs that offer a real threat also used to drop something good sometimes. this is all too random imho and there are some good farm spots but not nearly enough. i'd suggest tweaking the drop chances making some things drop in some areas more than in others.

then there's the actual threat. some (fire mobs) are much too dangerous for their level and drop chances and overall some still drop way too much. something that is rather not helping either is the fact that due to the balancing some rares are actually worthless... i'd even argue most are pretty worthless which is really sad. more side grades less best in slot.

Was going to make a thread regarding this. There are many many under populated mobs in the NE of the map, especially some of the OP sectors. Complete waste of zones IMO. And as you said, the drop rate for mobs such as terror leapers/raptors are pretty poor considering they are high ranked mobs. Terrormaulers may as well be bumbed to the same level as a Doomreaper too and give the chance for them to drop techs purely because of the silly damage they do. There's no reward for tackling them as it stands and leads to entire zones being populated by them and hoppers because no one can be bothered to clear them out.
04-04-16, 14:20
Hell-demon

The double exp is a temporary incentive for new players, and I think quicker leveling means access to new toys quicker and creates the ol' carrot on a stick approach. I agree on rares - it is just stupid at the moment. Some mobs drop nothing of note and some people are able to hoard thousands of rare pieces from fire mobs. Most are indeed useless because most people favour a particular type of weapon and cookie cutter setup. Cursed souls and Silent hunters and the like. Melee weapons are trash, but changes to MC5 have made the price sky rocket on MC5 implants. Neocron's economy is truly screwed.

Speaking of which, I went on the test server and I agree with Orca on every point.

A simple question I put towards the team: Who screwed the pooch?

And that is putting it nicely. In actual fact someone has fucked the pooch hard into bloodied yams!

The implants and power armour are fucked. It's all fucked! I can see why you are struggling but...fuck!

What happened? The values are all messed up. Sure the decimals are gone but I don't know why some of the implants have the values they do and the power armours are gimped!

Excuse me, I have to fill up the swear jar. Shit.
04-04-16, 14:21
Trivaldi

Quote:

Originally Posted by RogerRamjet

Was going to make a thread regarding this. There are many many under populated mobs in the NE of the map, especially some of the OP sectors. Complete waste of zones IMO. And as you said, the drop rate for mobs such as terror leapers/raptors are pretty poor considering they are high ranked mobs. Terrormaulers may as well be bumbed to the same level as a Doomreaper too and give the chance for them to drop techs purely because of the silly damage they do. There's no reward for tackling them as it stands and leads to entire zones being populated by them and hoppers because no one can be bothered to clear them out.

Please do.
04-04-16, 14:53
eNTi

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trivaldi

Many critiques we receive is that we don't do enough and that we need to let the community help and that we need to take more people on. The best way anyone, right out of the gate, can help us is by posting their ideas, suggestions, proposals on the forum in a sensible manner so we can use those as foundations for the next thing we can address.

As already discussed in this thread, we know there has been a huge gap in progress. I've tried to explain how that happened but the gears are turning and things are happening again.

well you really don't have to get defensive. no point. we are just venting frustration over something we love to succeed as well. i don't think you are not doing enough i actually think you are doing too much (at once). i've seen this exact same problem manifest itself in other areas of life. i'm a software guy by heart and profession... and i've been to every bad place one can be. sometimes a new perspective and a fresh start can do wonders... even if you just take lessons learned and put them to good use in your other projects. that's one of the reasons why i think that a ue4 project would be a worthwhile distraction. that and because nc's legacy code base seems to make enough problems for 3 new mmos.

i guess the whole issue is some form of finding the right priorities. that we all have different tastes and want different things fixed first isn't helping of course. :)

there is one personal gripe though: i've tried to tackle many of the issues one by one in small dosages by doing brain port stuff and bug reports while leveling my chars. trying to report all the small things that arose just to give you one small piece of the whole puzzle to fix after the other. the lack of feedback and progress was just disheartening... while some where doing that exact same thing you were actually working on much broader things... instead of telling us to stop because you couldn't really take the time/energy to even acknowledge these issues we were met by deafening silence. so telling us to go to the brainport/bug section and writing up hour long feedback threads feels a bit patronizing. i'd really like to help but unless you feel comfortable to really tackle the details i don't see any point to this exercise. it really is a lot of work.
04-04-16, 15:11
Hell-demon

Quote:

Originally Posted by eNTi

telling us to go to the brainport/bug section and writing up hour long feedback threads feels a bit patronizing. i'd really like to help but unless you feel comfortable to really tackle the details i don't see any point to this exercise. it really is a lot of work.

Will agree on this. Neocron has always had a brainport sub-forum and it feels like it hardly receives any attention. If anything it feels like shouting in the dark or that this sub-forum is a place where are frustrations are just placated. Maybe I'm wrong, but if someone can list the ideas on the brainport that have actually been implemented in-game then we can assume that the brainport is conducive to improving the game. I have seen from some posts replies from the team saying they will add some suggestions to a to-do list.

What is on this to-do list? It's got to be huge but if we did have a concise list and we liased on it maybe we can knock down some walls.
04-04-16, 16:46
RogerRamjet

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trivaldi

Please do.

Will do a bit of research and put something up over the next few days.
05-04-16, 01:32
Trivaldi

Quote:

Originally Posted by eNTi

i guess the whole issue is some form of finding the right priorities. that we all have different tastes and want different things fixed first isn't helping of course. :)

This has always been an issue. One persons single important factor is at the bottom of the pile for other players. Once done we'll have much better, finer, control over all the pieces which reflect game balance. Reakktor's 2.2 release boiled some things down but there are still plenty of areas where there's duplication. You'd expect to change a single value and everything to be impacted in the same way. That's still not always the case, there's chunks of code which still run off and do very unexpected things.

Quote:

Originally Posted by eNTi

there is one personal gripe though: i've tried to tackle many of the issues one by one in small dosages by doing brain port stuff and bug reports while leveling my chars. trying to report all the small things that arose just to give you one small piece of the whole puzzle to fix after the other. the lack of feedback and progress was just disheartening... while some where doing that exact same thing you were actually working on much broader things... instead of telling us to stop because you couldn't really take the time/energy to even acknowledge these issues we were met by deafening silence. so telling us to go to the brainport/bug section and writing up hour long feedback threads feels a bit patronizing. i'd really like to help but unless you feel comfortable to really tackle the details i don't see any point to this exercise. it really is a lot of work.

You've covered this partially by discussing priorities. We can only do so much at once but we do read back through feedback and community input once we move on to something else. Please don't see posts with no responses as time wasted, it's not but at the same time we can't respond to everything all the time I'm afraid.

I'd like to hope that through open discussion here I've demonstrated that we do read and do take on board feedback. I can't promise anything but I am hoping to increase activity across the forums from the team, that probably means just me for the most part posting walls of text but where possible prodding the team into the right places too. Again I can't promise anything but that is one of my goals I've come toward in the last month or so of having given myself a kick up the arse to get active with my Neocron contributions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hell-demon

Will agree on this. Neocron has always had a brainport sub-forum and it feels like it hardly receives any attention. If anything it feels like shouting in the dark or that this sub-forum is a place where are frustrations are just placated. Maybe I'm wrong, but if someone can list the ideas on the brainport that have actually been implemented in-game then we can assume that the brainport is conducive to improving the game.

There are at least some but I can certainly see your point and frustrations, it's not an ideal situation but having these ideas stored in at least some way means they can be looked upon in time. We do have our own list of things we'd like to achieve alongside some of the suggestions made by the community but that comes back around to the original post - our development process is not transparent enough. I am hopeful that can change as all of the cogs start to turn again, some departments are quieter than others still.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hell-demon

I have seen from some posts replies from the team saying they will add some suggestions to a to-do list.

What is on this to-do list? It's got to be huge but if we did have a concise list and we liased on it maybe we can knock down some walls.

This is something I've brought up internally. It again relates to the development process and being more transparent. It is a big list and we need to probably bring the top end, near term parts of it out of the shadows.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RogerRamjet

Will do a bit of research and put something up over the next few days.

Awesome, thanks!
05-04-16, 11:10
Zoltan

I like such kinds of posts <3

*parsing*
06-04-16, 17:13
eNTi

for me the big question is... what easy tools can be used to make the communication more fluid and helpful. i'd strongly suggest an open bug tracker.
17-04-16, 22:14
eNTi

Quote:

Originally Posted by eNTi

for me the big question is... what easy tools can be used to make the communication more fluid and helpful. i'd strongly suggest an open bug tracker.

so to quote myself and say it once more... if you (the volunteer team) don't improve the feedback loop in a meaningful way this thread will go under just like countless before it and the forums will be dead once again.

i really do think you should use the traction some motivated people are trying to create otherwise i can't see much hope for the community...
18-04-16, 00:24
Divide

Quote:

Originally Posted by eNTi

i really do think you should use the traction some motivated people are trying to create

You guys are a small team, either by design or by some cosmic luck. Harness the momentum others make for you, it's the only thing providing forward motion right now other than the hope of a patch and some teaser graphics every now and again.
18-04-16, 02:10
Hell-demon

I felt a glimmer of hope that things were picking up momentum, but that has all gone. Still no updates, no word on a patch, no update to the test server and the population is dwindling.

Team say something. Throw us a bone. If you can, throw us a date on a possible patch. Tell us what is happening behind the scenes.

Anything.
18-04-16, 09:22
Ascension

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hell-demon

I felt a glimmer of hope that things were picking up momentum, but that has all gone. Still no updates, no word on a patch, no update to the test server and the population is dwindling.

Team say something. Throw us a bone. If you can, throw us a date on a possible patch. Tell us what is happening behind the scenes.

Anything.

Yup, I'll agree with you on this. I check here regularly for a glimmer of an update. Maybe even just for a touch of nostalgia and false hope.
20-04-16, 20:28
Baldur

1 Attachment(s)

It's not that easy to show off some new stuff when it comes to content development. Our Asset guys can post some shiny screenshots and everybody goes �wohoooo�. With that said let me try to give you some ideas about what we are currently working on in the Content Development team.

Besides fixing bugs (think gameworld-bugs, bugs in scripts, possible exploits, NavRay issues etc.) our main focus has been the New Player Experience in Neocron.

The idea of our current project is to offer the new Runner a basic, mission based tutorial and provide suitable weapon and armour upgrades to close the gap between the items you start with and the rewards from Mr. Jones missions. Taking this further our aim is to also introduce a new set of newbie missions after the Runner has worked for Mr. Jones.

Neocron�s starting area Area MC5 (aka Noob MC5) now has a multiple mission chain introducing various subjects to new runners, including how to:
- construct items
- research items
- recycle items

These missions provide new (crafted) weapons and armour (item levels 4-9), medkits, experience points and credits.
We have also implemented new fetch and kill missions where players gain additional experience and credits as well as get more information about:

- vehicles, vehicle depots, destroying vehicles etc.
- �healers� and �healing� in Neocron
- what Area MC5 is
- the chip in their heads (Law Enforcer)

Familiar popup info windows have also been updated and additional popups have been implemented which give basic information about the starting area, where to find the GeneReplicator to leave MC5, what to do next and what a GoGuardian is etc. all once a player enters a specific area of the sector.

To give you an idea of what this looks like, here�s a breakdown of what we currently have on our internal test server with more to come:
Planned general mission chain of the whole "tutorial":

- New Area MC5 missions (reward items between TL4 and 9) leading to...
- Mr. Jones missions (reward items TL10) leading to�
- new JobCenter missions (reward items between TL15 and 20)

At the end of his last mission Mr. Jones now gives the new Runner a hint about follow up missions which start in the JobCenter.
The JobCenter is also being reworked at the moment and Runners will be able to pick up new missions that lead them to the most important places within Neocron City (they learn where to buy stuff, where to meet people, where to find leveling areas etc.), as well as faction based missions.

Attachment 12591
(Work in Progress - please ignore the missing alphas for the trees)
21-04-16, 00:55
eNTi

How does this help the oldies with wanting to stay with the game or coming back to it? There is so much stuff simply broken that any effort seems pointless. I kind of wonder where you are going with this. I hope you don't want to create another hand holding theme park game?

While I appreciate the gesture this is still not addressing the core issues regarding the communication with your dwindling player base. It only shows that you are working other things than people are reporting on or wanting fixed. I know... there's always someone asking for the revamp of the new player experience too. I just didn't think this had any real merit until the basics were ironed out? I just don't understand your priorities I guess. This is the wrong approach imho. I think you should cater to your core audience... oh well I guess at least we know you are still on it... somehow.

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