Balancing one item at a time

[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.

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

[J@ck on Cr@ck]

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

Thats also my impression and interpretation from what I hear.

[Herrad]

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.

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).

[SynC_187]

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.

[Doc Holliday]

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.

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.

[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.

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.

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.

[Herrad]

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.

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...

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.

Great point there though!

[Dribble Joy]

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.

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.

[Doc Holliday]

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.

so you meant your ideas then?

[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....