Must Every Thread Be Turned into the Complaint Department on Balance?

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by eratosthenes, October 29, 2014.

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  1. nanolathe

    nanolathe Post Master General

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    Firstly, respond to community concerns. Second, detail their planed features with a roadmap. Third, stop any and all hostile comments/actions on specific members of the community and instead, find common ground.

    That's what I can think of off the cuff.

    Since I am unaware of any communication between the statera team and Uber I cannot comment on any issues that they may or may not have had. Perhaps stuart would be a better person to ask.

    ---

    No, we can't. We don't have nearly the number of hooks we'd need to make our "own game". the release of the offline servers has had minimal impact on our ability to modify the game on the whole.
    Last edited: October 29, 2014
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  2. nanolathe

    nanolathe Post Master General

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    -ignore-
  3. shotforce13

    shotforce13 Well-Known Member

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    Popcorn?? Its a little salty but still does the trick (like our current balance)
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  4. cola_colin

    cola_colin Moderator Alumni

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    What kind of balancing changes do you want to do that can't be done right now?
    The only issue I know is that we can't affect how wrecks affect pathfinding (or dont)
  5. YourLocalMadSci

    YourLocalMadSci Well-Known Member

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    As far as I'm concerned, the very fact that this cycle keeps occurring is evidence enough that the way we discuss balance is flawed. And by we, I mean both the community and the developers. As always, the biggest problem is not the state of PA, but the communication around PA.

    If you think things have to stay that way, then I'm sorry, but I heartily disagree. I believe it is possible to heal these rifts, direct conversation more thoughtfully, and turn a random mish-mash of conflicting ideas into a rich and fertile ground for discussion. But it requires appropriate leadership, that I'm afraid has to be presented by Uber. And I'm not confident that that is going to happen.
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  6. squishypon3

    squishypon3 Post Master General

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    I can't say either, @stuart98 @tHeTrOpHySyStEm @zx0 , your thoughts?
  7. nanolathe

    nanolathe Post Master General

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    Um... ok, for a start, I'd like to make orbital units actually orbit the planet and obey some form of Delta-V limitation for transfers between planets. Pretty sure we can't do that yet.
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  8. cptconundrum

    cptconundrum Post Master General

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    I don't believe that the RCBM team represents the entire community. It is possible for the devs to communicate and interact with the community without meeting with you personally.

    They have tried this before and many people responded with fear and anger even though not all of the details had been worked out yet.

    Oh this is a good one considering I rarely even go on Realm Teamspeak since that time I logged in and you started insulting me and telling me to go away within seconds of me logging in. Are you even aware that you are one of the most hostile parts of this community?

    Squishy is a part of that Statera team. There is no reason to not believe that the devs have been communicating with them.
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  9. cola_colin

    cola_colin Moderator Alumni

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    That's a pretty drastic, but valid for certain ideas, change I guess. Yeah point for you.
    We'd need more gameplay scripting for that. I want that as well :)

    I don't think it has to stay at the current level of "Do our discussions even have any meaning?".
    As I said, I think the best way is: People from the community formulate their ideas in essays, accompanied by balance mods. The community then discusses those ideas.
    Uber reads them and is influenced in their thoughts and writes essays as well, pointing out how they came to certain conclusions.

    I just think that direct communication in the form of threads like these do not work very well. They may work if time would be unlimited, but it is not.
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  10. tatsujb

    tatsujb Post Master General

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    my take on this is that results are what speaks volumes. Uber's current balance results in utter horsecrap...

    some mods I've tried are an instant relief.

    A + B reasoning gives me : these modders, at the very least, know more about balancing than Uber.
  11. cptconundrum

    cptconundrum Post Master General

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    https://forums.uberent.com/threads/why-the-balance-forum-feels-like-a-waste-of-my-time.59284/

    These problems don't change just because people decided to start posting balance discussions in the general forum.
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  12. ace63

    ace63 Post Master General

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    I absolutely hate this way or arguing. Yeah no one of us represents the entire community so each and every concern people have is invalid because not 100% of people share this opinion.
  13. cptconundrum

    cptconundrum Post Master General

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    I don't think their ideas should be ignored; I just don't see the point of giving Nanolathe personal meetings with Uber. It seems he won't be happy with anything else.
  14. nanolathe

    nanolathe Post Master General

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    I'm not asking for personal meetings... especially after what I found out when I did have meetings with Uber on Teamspeak as part of the Vanguard.

    Personal meetings are the furthest thing from my mind when it comes to the people I'd be able to talk to at Uber about balance.
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  15. thetrophysystem

    thetrophysystem Post Master General

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    I'd settle for Uber responding to balance suggestions with a yes or no and why.

    Example: Any substantial buff to naval at all to make them more useful. Yes or no Uber, and why? I personally think Naval would actually function if it was twice as fast as currently and cheap enough to produce at land unit volumes (or at least give individual ships twice the cost for twice the health and weapons, effectively making it 2 units).

    Anything else in this thread is politics. And politics needs a nerf because politics is OP. Or buff a counter to it, like trolling. And since trolling used to be so OP you couldn't accomplish results without crutching off of it, I just say they nerf politics.

    Then again, I am starting to not like playing competitive vanilla planetary annihilation OR competitive uber forum participation. Both aren't very balanced or fun strategically.
  16. cptconundrum

    cptconundrum Post Master General

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    Then what do you want? I see a lot of complaining and calls for communication, but I don't see you actually doing anything about it. There are ways to have your opinion heard, but it only works if explain your thoughts calmly and logically. I recommend you start a thread in the balance forum suggesting a few small changes that would be easy to make and that would improve the game. Just saying "Everything is wrong with balance" or "orbital mechanics are bad" won't help very much.

    Uber does listen to community complaints. They listened when people said dox were underpowered and we now have 8 minute games with nothing but dox. They listened when we said vanguards were too good and now I never see them. Uber listened when people complained that every game was a race to t2 and now nobody ever builds t2.
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  17. MrTBSC

    MrTBSC Post Master General

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    pretty much because both factions are very unballanced
  18. nanolathe

    nanolathe Post Master General

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    Small changes are relatively pointless when I consider everything except the majority of the baseline mechanics to be wrong. Uber have made it abundantly clear that they don't want to listen to me on this matter. They are happy with the game that they have.

    I've talked about the subject of communication before, but since you haven't come across it, or haven't read it if you did, all I want is for Uber to rationalise their design decisions to the community, since it was a crowdfunded game with the initial premise that it would be built with community involvement.

    And yet they now ignore the call that dox have been over-buffed, that expansionism is now greatly hindered, that Naval is worthless and that orbital is lackluster. Any time they have reacted to community input on balance it has swung the pendulum to the opposite extreme, without any effort to seek a middle ground and without any attempt to rationalise the extremity of the change. I feel that this is the key aspect where communication is lacking.
  19. MrTBSC

    MrTBSC Post Master General

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    you do realise that they are working on ladder better map generation and also try to finish the ks commanders asap ... they may not work at ballance for those reasons ... i still wont go so far and say that they entirely ignore it ...
  20. squishypon3

    squishypon3 Post Master General

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    That's not actually true, @jables has made a couple comments on them working on the Dox and (possibly) Naval, or at least balance as a whole.

    Uber has been much better at communicating as of late, giving us WIP pictures and information, it's an on going process lead by Jables. Maybe there isn't a roadmap, but many other ways they've shown they're more open to the community than they had been in the past, you must know that.
    cptconundrum likes this.
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