Balancing one item at a time

I think we're all in agreement that, while there were some interesting ideas introduced in NCs last balancing project (2.2), the implementation was god awful.

It's great having a test server to try out things the devs have fixed or introduced, this is a huge leap forward. However, I'm worried that our next balancing effort is going to go the same way as 2.2... i.e. one big bang fix that'll make it all ok.

In an effort to combat this, why don't you try an "item spotlight" strategy for releasing new patches. Instead of fixing things in one big bang, focus on one item per patch. That way stuff can be tweaked based on the real world faster (tighter focus = faster releases, right?).

Dunno if that's even possible in the current code base, but I figure anything closer to a more continuous release process the better.

I'm under the impression that they are not going to release a huge balance patch with a lot of things changed at once.

Take the last patch (R#182) as an example where the Disruptor and AK received a damage reduction.

One step at a time is great and I think they will want to walk that path (but I might be wrong of course :)).

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Originally Posted by SilentEye

I'm under the impression that they are not going to release a huge balance patch with a lot of things changed at once.

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Thats also my impression and interpretation from what I hear.

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Originally Posted by SilentEye

I'm under the impression that they are not going to release a huge balance patch with a lot of things changed at once.

Take the last patch (R#182) as an example where the Disruptor and AK received a damage reduction.

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Yeah, that was my impression too. However, the balancing in this patch seems like more of a band-aid fix rather than something that's been thoroughly play-tested. I'm suggesting one weapon (or maybe the pistol rifle and cannon variants of one weapon) per month with people logging onto the test server and giving changes a good go, not just big bang a bunch of changes, then tweak individual items til they work (which is the vibe I've picked up of late).

I thought it was a big single project too.

Problem with balancing one at a time is you are going to annoy your customer base. Every patch there is a rush to get the latest auto win weapon because the last one just got a nerf. You've just saved up for something that appears brilliant and got a good slotted one, to find that it should have never been that powerful and gets a neft. Doing it peacemeal just prolongs the unpredictable balance. At least now people know where they stand, even if it means that there are only a few viable setups.

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Originally Posted by Herrad

Yeah, that was my impression too. However, the balancing in this patch seems like more of a band-aid fix rather than something that's been thoroughly play-tested.

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Thats entirely the opposite of what was planned and why the balance project has yet to get underway. I believe it was Mokoi that said it himself that it was discussed back and forth internally and decided to go ahead with it but not before a lot was debated. They want to move AWAY from bandaid fixes and fix the real issues.

As for your idea. fix one weapon a month. fuck that. i cant express my disgust for the idea enough. It would take literally forever doing it that way and would probably take up far too much time of some of the devs to dribble out patches to sustain this.

A better idea would be akin to the theme weeks of 2.1-2.2. Fix a weapon group. However i would diversify it further and select by class so pistols rifles cannons are split. then maybe TC and LT could be split. do it in clusters and release chunks at a time for testing. even do it class by class and all that encompasses.

you have to bear in mind your dealing with real people who have lives etc. Thats the people working on the game and the people playing the game. neither wants to be drawing a pension before the private eye finally gets unnerfed.


On a seperate note i would like to make a suggestion. In order to successfully balance this all out i would ask that you look at the community as a whole and see if there are volunteers who can make this work and actually help out. Unofficial testers. I would like to think this would not need to be incentivised and i would also like to suggest that as a dev team you invite people rather than asking them to apply.

One of John Doe's and KK's big failures in this 2.2 balancing was listening to too many people in this community who were too vocal and powerposted on the forum without really having a clue what they were talking about. You can go back over the archives and find out who it was too if anyone is curious i dont need to name names here. Some of them really fucked this game up and it was their voices that were heard. I blame them for alot of this mess as much as i do KK and even black prophecy.

Even as temporary testers choose people who have a modicum of intelligence and can be available when required. sadly I doubt I would be of a lot of use to you simply due to my timezone (9 hours ahead of the UK atm) but would volunteer in a heartbeat even if its purely to be a test subject and get shot at and submit damage logs etc. If you guys ever did early morning testing on a week day i would jump in or i can stay up later to help out on some days but otherwise it could be tricky whereas im certain there are plenty of excellent candidates who are a little closer to euro time.

Its food for thought for you all. Please dont let anyone fuck it up again.

I don't think its good to "balance" one item at at time. Because thats not what makes balance. Balance is if all the pistols are useful, so they have to be done together. Balance is when Pistols and Rifles are viable, and each has their positive points, which cannot be done seperatly from each other. There has to be at least a balancing plan before it can be done, that has to be for all weapons at once.

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Originally Posted by Doc Holliday

One of John Doe's and KK's big failures in this 2.2 balancing was listening to too many people in this community who were too vocal and powerposted on the forum without really having a clue what they were talking about.

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I don't know about that part, and how large the influence of that was, but I know the largest error was, that the testing of the balancing was a failure.
1) Feedback about the damage of weapons was ignored. There were numbers of actual ingame behaviour of the weapons. Without moving targets, just straight on. It was easy to see that the damage per minute of the weapons was vastly different. Feedback was ignored, and everything released the way it was.
2) There were not that much people that actually tested. There were many trying out what was coming up, but testing and giving feedback was only done by a few.

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Originally Posted by Deus Ex Machina

I don't think its good to "balance" one item at at time. Because thats not what makes balance. Balance is if all the pistols are useful, so they have to be done together. Balance is when Pistols and Rifles are viable, and each has their positive points, which cannot be done seperatly from each other. There has to be at least a balancing plan before it can be done, that has to be for all weapons at once.

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I fundamentally disagree with the planning part. I don't think you can plan without understanding the system and if one thing has been clear over the past few months it's that the devs are really struggling to understand the system (rightly so, I bet it's a pain in the arse!).

What if the devs started with a weapon group that isn't used at all... say freezer weapons. Bring them back into the fold (I'm not sure what change could do that but bear with me), then test the shit out of them for a month and see if the changes are over or underpowered, if it's the latter, release the change anyway... freeze weapons can't get worse, right?

The devs could then tackle a weapon that's overpowered (in my opinion that's the ionic shotgun stuff, but that's just an example). Adjust them so they're maybe less desirable in a few of the plethora of situations they're currently viable in.

Those are just examples but if it was done incrementally in this fashion then there's a chance of more interesting PVP and PVE evolving, whilst also addressing some of the more poignant issues...

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Originally Posted by Deus Ex Machina

2) There were not that much people that actually tested. There were many trying out what was coming up, but testing and giving feedback was only done by a few.

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Great point there though!

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Originally Posted by Deus Ex Machina

I don't know about that part, and how large the influence of that was, but I know the largest error was, that the testing of the balancing was a failure.
1) Feedback about the damage of weapons was ignored. There were numbers of actual ingame behaviour of the weapons. Without moving targets, just straight on. It was easy to see that the damage per minute of the weapons was vastly different. Feedback was ignored, and everything released the way it was.
2) There were not that much people that actually tested. There were many trying out what was coming up, but testing and giving feedback was only done by a few.

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The other big problem was that much of the suggestions that were implemented were done in a way that completely failed to provide their intended effects and/or failed to mesh with the other changes and/or required changes to other parts of the system.

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Originally Posted by Dribble Joy

The other big problem was that much of the suggestions that were implemented were done in a way that completely failed to provide their intended effects and/or failed to mesh with the other changes and/or required changes to other parts of the system.

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so you meant your ideas then?

Well other people's too, but I'll be honest, yes.

I don't want to be angry, but when I pushed for something and what we got wasn't what I meant and then people start blaming me... it's difficult, especially when far less of what was implemented actually had anything to do with me than people now assume. I was so frustrated at the time and quite despondent at the results.
I can't even remember what happened with what, which changes were made with 2.1 and those with 2.2, it's all a bit of a blurr in my mind, whether any suggestions I made happened in the latter or the former. I admit I had some contact with one member of the team at one stage of one of them, though a lot less than some other people (and from what I understand there were a few), and we mostly argued. I probably made more impact posting here.

The whole thing reeked of design by committee, not by a single person or coordinated team and that nothing was ever discussed. I was going to add some metaphor here about string, cat's cradle or something but now I'm just getting fed up remembering it all and can't be arsed. It was a mess.

If anything really was my fault I'm sorry (seriously it was eight years ago (?), I was different person) but can we please move on?

Edit: Ugh, I thought that would be cathartic. Now I just feel like I want to go down the pub....

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Originally Posted by Dribble Joy

Well other people's too, but I'll be honest, yes.

I don't want to be angry, but when I pushed for something and what we got wasn't what I meant and then people start blaming me... it's difficult, especially when far less of what was implemented actually had anything to do with me than people now assume. I was so frustrated at the time and quite despondent at the results.
I can't even remember what happened with what, which changes were made with 2.1 and those with 2.2, it's all a bit of a blurr in my mind, whether any suggestions I made happened in the latter or the former. I admit I had some contact with one member of the team at one stage of one of them, though a lot less than some other people (and from what I understand there were a few), and we mostly argued. I probably made more impact posting here.

The whole thing reeked of design by committee, not by a single person or coordinated team and that nothing was ever discussed. I was going to add some metaphor here about string, cat's cradle or something but now I'm just getting fed up remembering it all and can't be arsed. It was a mess.

If anything really was my fault I'm sorry (seriously it was eight years ago (?), I was different person) but can we please move on?

Edit: Ugh, I thought that would be cathartic. Now I just feel like I want to go down the pub....

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At least you admitted it. Props to you for that.


However some of the blame has to be attributed to each person who contributed because you cannot just say they misinterpreted my ideas all the way along. Thats too much like a politician! It is also bad communication of the ideas (regardless of the fault lying at transmitting or receiving those ideas). You are not entirely blameless neither are you entirely at fault.

Too many changes got made that didn't need to be made (+3.5 Int anyone?). That everyone else bolted for the hills while you stuck around is one point but lets be fair here as much as we would probably love a good witch hunt it's probably not worth it.

regardless of how long ago it was you have to admit that the game is in a sorry state compared to its potential. Fortunately for us we are blessed with a seriously much better team than what you got involved with.

To that end we really do need to ALL learn from Dribble Joys short-sightedness and think about the knock on effects of what changes mean. It is as Herrad suggested much easier to take each out of the game and examine the process on its own but the second phase MUST include the secondary and tertiary effects of such proposals being investigated further down the line and seeing how these impact upon the primary aim of the game - fun.

If anything it serves to highlight the greater need for careful consideration of all suggestions from the community, even if some do make us chuckle when reading them!

The spark of an idea can often be inspired by the most unlikely of sources. I realise it is frustrating when we feel like our ideas do not get noticed or acknowledged but I have faith (with the recent LE changes) that behind the scenes these things are discussed.

All we can do in the interim is keep suggesting ideas and keep shooting each other in Pepper Park.

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Originally Posted by Dribble Joy

Well other people's too, but I'll be honest, yes.

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On this point first of all DJ i wasnt just meaning you. There was a whole load of people who were very active on the forums back then and not all had the best intentions in mind. I watched and read and posted and agreed on stuff and disagreed on stuff and yes as you quite rightly say stuff was pushed for that was completely fubarred in its implementation.

Hell i remember hearing some of the names of the people invited to closed beta for nc2 and then when the open beta i remember everyone running around doy having a look. There was even a large pack of red sl runners rampaging through doy that killed everyone without fear of repercussion because they knew it was going to be a database wipe before the official launch of 2.0.

I didnt stick around for 2.1 as i didnt have a laptop and only rejoined the shenanigans towards the end of it all as i recall. As i said there were some real idiots who had personal agendas or just plain stupid ideas and i hate to say it but this community isn't always the best judge of who should be listened to and whos ideas should be implemented and there are a whole shit load of reasons as to why.

There were also some very good people who made some very intelligent and succint posts on the topics presented and really tried to get involved in testing properly. One i will always remember was lifewaster. for me he seemed to have a very good handle on it all.

Now to move forward with future testing and helping as i said i would love to see a group handpicked from the community to do it in future.

However what could be even better is that we organise a group ourselves. as a community. We could become "unofficial" testers and if time permits for people we could agree to meet up on the test server at any given time for each patch and actually test properly and help get some of these patches out the door that bit faster.

183 really renewed my faith in a lot of ways with the game and i am wholeheartedly wanting to do more. I did before but i got so fed up with the lack of fun that even the speedcap being introduced couldnt encourage me to log on daily. i admit to being fickle (and also having a lot on with my masters course which kept me out of the game for a while) and i am glad of the month i took off but i am ready to get back to it when ever possible and actually HELPING where possible rather than crying about shit on the forum.

I hope others will too.

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Originally Posted by Doc Holliday

Now to move forward with future testing and helping as i said i would love to see a group handpicked from the community to do it in future.

However what could be even better is that we organise a group ourselves. as a community. We could become "unofficial" testers and if time permits for people we could agree to meet up on the test server at any given time for each patch and actually test properly and help get some of these patches out the door that bit faster.

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See, I think the best way would be to recruit a whole team of "quality assurance" guys from the community. These guys test stuff before it goes to public test server, hammer out the important bugs and address larger concerns before the community tests it.

They don't have to be fixed before it's released to public testserver, but as long as the devs have more guidance from QA we can avoid most of the "design by comittee" problems we had last time.

Dear DJ, don't feel mad about the NC2.2 failure. It is not your fault at all.
Many people are accusing me for the same stuff. It is true that I posted a lot on the brainports and had a lot of ideas but at the end KK did nothing out of it.

For example KKs idea to balance everything on Techlevel.
We said: Good idea, BUT you will nevertheless have to look at each item if it fits its purposes. Did they do it? No they didn't. They even balanced all the implants by techlevel which led to comma values (they had a round function implemented which fucked up the whole design...)

For example KKs idea to let implants take damage when getting hit.
We said: Bullshit idea. What did we find on the testserver? Exactly this feature.

For example KKs idea to implement the nanites which were proposed from angakok.
We said: Do it the way angakok proposed. And what did they do? Implement a totally bad designed feature which had nothing to do with the proposal.

The biggest problem was: The balancing team of KK seemed to never have played this game properly. They never PvPed and maybe never even played. How could they understand what we wanted?

And after all this mess we went testing on the Testserver. Most of the stuff was utterly bullshit. They had some nice features such as the whole new resist/armor setup and some new content but that was it. We reported all the bugs and everything but the whole stuff was totally unfinished. Most of the people testing at the beginning stopped because they realised how bad this will be. Snowcrash once asked me why no one is testing on the Testserver?
I answered: "Because this whole stuff is unfinished and unpolished and you will never be able to fix this in time. And everybody knows this because you are KK."

He was mad at me after that. One week later they released it because they were "forced" to. I was not the only one begging them to delay the release!

We know today that KK had another project running at this time called: Black Prophecy. The Devs sitting at "our" balancing project were people not good enough to work on Black Prophecy I suppose.

The failure on 2.2 should be blamed on KK and no-one else. KK never finished the balancing project and rushed it to retail.

I know out there there on the forums there is some very angry posts out there on the subject from me, and I do remember having a very angry rant with Snowcrash over MSN at the time as well.

Anyway I trust the new support team to get it right. Anyone remember past nerfs by KK, and the community would flame KK to hell and back? Well I've not seen any of that around here when the dissy and AK got nerfed. ;)

OK SWEET NOW WE CAN BLAME MORE PEOPLE!!!

What do we burn apart from witches!!!!!


MOAR WITCHES!!!!


Seriously though I like Doc's idea. It is all well and good people griping and sniping at one another but we do need to put our money where our mouths are and actually test stuff. Not just bug reporting but actual balancing too. There are enough guys in the community (and girls probably) who know a LOT about NC mechanics and can accurately and IMPARTIALLY judge this stuff and suggest improvements.

Yes we will all have our biases (I know Walker and I will both try to stealthily implement boosts for the Private Eye and Brammers will put a hex on anything that looks remotely bad for Tech Haven) but we do have a lot of experience (over 100 years worth I would guess) between us.

Lets put it to good use.

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Originally Posted by Brammers

Anyway I trust the new support team to get it right. Anyone remember past nerfs by KK, and the community would flame KK to hell and back? Well I've not seen any of that around here when the dissy and AK got nerfed. ;)

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Needless to say that the volunteer team released two patches recently and didn't break anything which would require a hotfix.
(did anyone notice? :P)

I am very confident that they will do the right thing.

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Originally Posted by nabbl

For example KKs idea to balance everything on Techlevel.

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This is a prime example of an idea that might have worked as a general principle/guideline for item distribution but was implemented without any thought for how it impacted on the classes and the game, far too rigid and blind.

You ended up with armour groups who's reqs straddled a classes' caps, implants that were over or underpowered for their intended use, the accentuation of imbalances that already existed, useless item groups (especially armour), items unavailable to classes that needed them and similar poorly thought-out alterations to how items interacted with gameplay.