Rant! (Based on the Producer's Letter)

[OmnipotentKiwi]

Latest Producer's Letter (http://planetside.station.sony.com/news_story.jsp?story=54739)

I don't like that they are doing balancing with players who just started playing the game. Warning, rant mode activated....


This always ruins games. It is one of the things that ruined DAoC for me. People will always yell NERF whenever they see something as stacked against them. Die once to one class without being able to put up a fight, they must be nerfed. How could they possibly think that the current testers have a FULL grasp on the balance of the entire game on a massive scale when they, themselves, haven't yet reached a massive scale?
Unpeaked players
Not massive
A bunch of n00b players (No offense Hamma, Mars, afex ;) )

Yet they understand balance already?

Bah. Balance should be achieved after release. The designers have been making and playing this game for a very long time, the game is probably fairly balanced as is. I would rather start on the underdog side to have things balanced after the game is released, truly tested, and understood, then balanced based on players who have little experience with the game yet, playing it not how it will be played in the future.

[diluted]

i agree completely.






again.

[OmnipotentKiwi]

Yeah, sorry about that diluted ;)

[Sando138]

http://gonci.aowc.net/user/files/395/smiley.gif

this little guy says it all... if i could only get the background transparent i would suggest that hamma put it in the site listings...

[Subliminal]

We should start a petition maybe a march on the devs office.
:wantbeta: :wantbeta: :wantbeta: :wantbeta: :wantbeta: :wantbeta: :wantbeta: :wantbeta: :vssucks: :wantbeta: :wantbeta:

Dave will have to wave the white flag and put the game out march 25th :D Ok so i dont want an unpolished POS but i think may 19th is rediculas. Apr 19th is more like it.

[�io]

I don't really have any opinion on that much, i trust the dev team to "nerf" something only if both the testers AND them think it's unbalanced, besides worst comes to worst they will change it a 2nd time once released.

I only have 1 true rant about test.... I'M ON SPRING BREAK AND NOT IN IT!!!! :tear:

[Fire_Monkey]

I agree kiwi but we have to have more information to really know if the changes are going to be bad.

[�io]

Originally posted by Fire_Monkey
I agree kiwi but we have to have more information to really know if the changes are going to be bad.

'xactly! :)

[Hamma]

Would you rather nerf somthing and have hundreds of thousands of people bitching upon release or nerf it before the game goes out so that its taken care of :p

[afex]

so you expect absolutely zero gameplay balencing changes after release?

so you must've never played.....any game, ever?

[PrivateMonkey]

Most devs don't just nerf things on the spot. In beta nerfing might be more common, but generally speaking there will be some testing behind it. You're right, some of the really subtle balance issues will only be figured out near (or even after) release. But the big fish, the ones that stick out like sore thumbs, those are ussually caught in beta, and acknowledged by nearly everyone. I haven't had any experience with DAoC, so I can't comment, but as far as other games go this is ussually the process.

[Irnbru]

in DAoC, each patch they release requires 10 more patches to fix the mistakes they make in first patch -_-

[OmnipotentKiwi]

Originally posted by afex
so you expect absolutely zero gameplay balencing changes after release?

so you must've never played.....any game, ever?

No, of course not. I am just stating that I think they are currently rushing it by putting the question of "What is unbalanced" to playtesters who haven't even played the game for a month. :)

And I have beta tested tons of games, early stage balance changes have gone both good and bad. Obviously the game isn't coming out soon, as the now predicted release date is May 19th, they could wait a little longer for balance changes that weren't obvious to them before beta started.

[Observer105]

Originally posted by OmnipotentKiwi
I think they are currently rushing it by putting the question of "What is unbalanced"

I agree with this, except for the fact...i dont think they're rushing it.

[Zatrais]

Dosn't really matter how much they balance it for me, i don't think it ever will be completely balanced.. Kinda makes it more fun cause then things are changing in every patch hehe

[Marsman]

All I can say on this is to to have faith in the devs and the older testers. These issues are well known to both devs and testers and you can rest assured there are lengthy debates in the beta forums over such things. I think it's safe to say that nothing is being changed on the whim of a few testers who played the game a couple of times. If there is a balance issue change made, it will most likely be done by the agreement of the majority of the testers and the devs. No change is made lightly or frivolously. I feel there is also the awareness that the game play will be different from when there are just a few people fighting to when there are hundreds. So keep the faith that devs and testers will do the best they can to address these concerns.

[�io]

Originally posted by Marsman
All I can say on this is to to have faith in the devs and the older testers.

Read: Have faith in the devs and me.

;)

[OmnipotentKiwi]

I trust ya Mars! ;)

[Scarab]

The main difference here is that DAoC is class based. If they nerf your class you're basically screwed because you spent months getting him to a competitive level.

But for this game there is no "classes" and you're already competitve as soon as you start the game (no leveling process), and if they nerf an ability to the point that you find it useless, it's so easy to respec out of it unlike DAoC.

Apples and Oranges here since nerfs in this game are far less crippling and I'm sure they're only nerfing OBVIOUS things that are unbalancing at this point.

*edit* - also that's a different company...Mythic has proven time and again that they don't even have enough resources to properly run their 1 halfway successful game...I don't expect that from Sony who is working on their second generation of MMOG's and who still holds the title for most successful MMOG to date.

[samosa]

I know I will probably get flamed for this...but oh well. I want this game to come out on June 20th. Why? you might ask, it's very simple really.
I know I'm going to get sucked into it, and I need to get into university, so if it comes out on June 20th school will be over and i wont have to worry.
If it comes out early, GREAT! I will just have to hold out on buying it. But waiting 1 month(may19) is a lot easier than 3(march25).

I'd still like to get into the beta though :)