Are the Devs stubborn? - Page 2

sylphaen · 2012-11-04, 07:18 PM

I would not have posted again but I want to show some public support for Figment. Yes, his posts are usually walls of text. Yes, his tendency to be vocal (and verbose) will make him post to no end on PSU.

In the end, while I do not always agree with him, I find that he offers a great contribution to these forums.

For instance, his posts on this thread to which I agree save me a lot of efforts. I tried to stay on topic in my previous post but there was one question in my mind I had decided not to delve into:
In a thread asking if the devs are stubborn, how do "PS1 vets" get bashed that fast ?

At this point, PS1 vets bashing is more than irrational, it's become a sport ! Yes, we are evil! We are blight on earth! We breed hatred and love to steal candies from babies !!!

We call ourselves Planetside fans but truly, we are a demoniac conglomerate of angry SOE competitors trying to sabotage PS2's launch !

No really...

Sorry for having to add so much irony but I feel it wasn't clear enough in Figment's post.

Why wouldn't we wish success to PS2 ? Why wouldn't we want to share ideas we feel would improve the game ? A lot of items were already discussed in many threads and as such, our job is done.

As it is often mentioned, PS1 vets represent a small number of players; small enough to be irrelevant. PS1 vets will not sway the masses (and fyi, I am not being ironic here). Why feel so angry at a minority group? At some point, and if you consider them as such, you should simply admit that "bittervets" are a nuisance and stop being bothered by them. We are not changing the game, devs are and if they decide to change something, it's because they believe will be improved, not because vets said so. They will take some and leave some. What counts at the end is having a great game to play !

PS2 will be what it is on release and the general public will judge it as it is. The issue of vets being bitter or not is irrelevant on what PS2 gameplay is and how much people will enjoy it. Time will reveal all things.

Putting all the bad on vets and commies is a bit of an easy shortcut and suppresses thought.

Rolfski · 2012-11-04, 09:49 PM

Originally Posted by sylphaen

I would not have posted again but I want to show some public support for Figment. Yes, his posts are usually walls of text. Yes, his tendency to be vocal (and verbose) will make him post to no end on PSU.

In the end, while I do not always agree with him, I find that he offers a great contribution to these forums.

For instance, his posts on this thread to which I agree save me a lot of efforts. I tried to stay on topic in my previous post but there was one question in my mind I had decided not to delve into:
In a thread asking if the devs are stubborn, how do "PS1 vets" get bashed that fast ?

At this point, PS1 vets bashing is more than irrational, it's become a sport ! Yes, we are evil! We are blight on earth! We breed hatred and love to steal candies from babies !!!

We call ourselves Planetside fans but truly, we are a demoniac conglomerate of angry SOE competitors trying to sabotage PS2's launch !

No really...

Sorry for having to add so much irony but I feel it wasn't clear enough in Figment's post.

Why wouldn't we wish success to PS2 ? Why wouldn't we want to share ideas we feel would improve the game ? A lot of items were already discussed in many threads and as such, our job is done.

As it is often mentioned, PS1 vets represent a small number of players; small enough to be irrelevant. PS1 vets will not sway the masses (and fyi, I am not being ironic here). Why feel so angry at a minority group? At some point, and if you consider them as such, you should simply admit that "bittervets" are a nuisance and stop being bothered by them. We are not changing the game, devs are and if they decide to change something, it's because they believe will be improved, not because vets said so. They will take some and leave some. What counts at the end is having a great game to play !

PS2 will be what it is on release and the general public will judge it as it is. The issue of vets being bitter or not is irrelevant on what PS2 gameplay is and how much people will enjoy it. Time will reveal all things.

Putting all the bad on vets and commies is a bit of an easy shortcut and suppresses thought.

Don't worry about it. Actually, I truly respect these vets for being so passionate, it's inspiring :-)
On other times, it's demotivating, depressing, ranting, repeating, blind raged, narrow minded and unconstructive though.

LONGFELLA KOJ · 2012-11-05, 12:15 AM

Originally Posted by Rolfski

Incorrect. Based on what T-Ray said, hundreds of thousands seem to be playing beta now, more then ever in PS1.

I would love to see where the stat for "hundreds of thousands" comes from. I very much doubt hundreds of thousands are playing Planetside 2 beta. Sorry.

Ghoest9 · 2012-11-05, 12:31 AM

Many of the things players ask for are completely unrealistic - because they are basically asking for a different game.

On the other hand the devs do refuse to do some really basic things like.
Give enemies circle markers so they dont get confused with friendly triangles.

Its a really easy change to implement that the player base almost universally wants(and we color blind players need) but they refuse.

Sturmhardt · 2012-11-05, 02:53 AM

Originally Posted by LONGFELLA KOJ

I would love to see where the stat for "hundreds of thousands" comes from. I very much doubt hundreds of thousands are playing Planetside 2 beta. Sorry.

Me too. I would really like to see some numbers on the players per continent, I wonder how many fit in atm.

Btw, great post figment, seriously, I second everything you wrote.

Figment · 2012-11-05, 04:05 AM

Thanks Sylphean.

About how and why I argue the way I do: See, I don't expect anyone to at all times agree with me, but I do expect them to argue why and not dismiss off hand without good reasons. But especially by being semi-discriminatory ("bittervets" is a pretty derogatory/demoninsing/racist stereotyping, if there was such a thing as a veteran race). Tbh, I don't get why that word isn't considered a direct troll insult because it's nothing but flamebait.

I often try to entice/force/bait people into showing the real reasons why they want something, try harder to defend their point of view and if they do, many times very good insights are gained. If they don't or refuse to, IMO they just maintain a weak position. Most of the times though, I just feel people haven't really thought long and hard about what they really want, but even less about how it will impact other things. Especially when it's not in their direct interest. I try to keep everyone's play styles possible, but fight OP or UP situations.

It really saddens me to conclude someone is just in a debate for themselves with not even attempting to look at it from the opponent's pov. Or even trying to see what really motivates them.

People have different perspectives and frames of references and that's a good thing. This game does need to cater to as many play styles as possible, but these have to be balanced against other play styles, or they just become dominant. If you already have a solo tank, why do you need to infringe upon another tankstyle too? Why not just ask to make that available solo-tank a bit stronger in some way if it is supposedly that skewed power wise against a multi-crew vehicle?

PS1 example other than BFRs and MBTs: In PS1, aircav was too dominant for a long period of the game, till the Wasp and Flaklet and AA upgradable turrets. Aircav camping in PS1 with no good counters probably cost a lot of subscribers as well. The Wasp and AA turrets were just a little bit too powerful though (Wasp had too much range with no counters to the lock on) and wall turret AA had too high damage output against fast, light air because it had to compete with Galaxy Gunships as well. The AA-air balance has never been quite right in PS1, even so, it was better to have a bit stronger AA because the backbone population of any FPS game is infantry.

I know, pilots back then often said "yes but situational awareness" and "but you can avoid that by not going there" or "pull your own aircraft". Within the context of that status quo of the game, sure, sound advice. But, was it an indication that it was balanced if those aircav also get really high K/Ds? Or did it mean that infantry should have been thrown a bone in the sense of more field cover or a little AA buff to handheld weapons?

And that's actually something PS2 does better, especially in terms of cover for infantry, making hoverspam less viable and I've said that before and they did a good job at that, especially with regards to walls. Once that's there, I don't see any reason to keep mentioning it every time I critique, I'll play my other improvement cards. My posts are long enough anyway.

PS2 currently has much stronger AA, which in itself is good, but since everyone can pull it (context!), air becomes the hunted, too hunted, now. I'd even say the two-shot AA lock on rockets are too strong for this context. Three shot would be better IMO. Now if the class/cert system was such that you could not get all infantry weapons per character and only few people would get this handheld AA, then two shot would actually be fine. It is good that there's flares and smoke that breaks the lock, but it kinda forces setups to have a flare defense slot right now and even more in the future when people have those things en mass.

Which is funny and ironic. See how balance works? You have to find that balance where it is useful, but not OP or making something else inviable. Niches have already been filled by very strong customizable solo units. It just makes adding new content problematic and potentially either OP or creating a riot because something someone purchased is heavily rebalanced to be weaker.

It's good to have the PS1 experience and have some feeling for how one minor change can impact and change the entire feel of the battlefield for other playstyles and units. Even though I love newbees entering the game, you can't expect them to realise the extend of the impact of such changes till they've at least experienced some of them in this new context. Hence why it is so important to listen to that general minority of PS1 players, regardless of their views.

Writing them off as irrelevant is the worst thing you can do right now. They're the most experienced with all these kind of things. They're the most passionate and the most likely to provide indepth feedback of all kinds and can provide tons of relevant analogies that others cannot. They're demanding and picky, sure and borderline annoyingly repetitive at times. But that doesn't make them wrong and tbh, that's a good thing: PS2 should keep raising the bar.

If all you hear is how it's all sunshine and roses, nothing will ever trully improve. As an artist and designer, I've always felt the best critiques I've been given were from the harshest, constructive critics out there. I'd feel I'm not doing my job if I wouldn't be harsh and critical, while also saying how something could be done better. Doesn't mean there might not be an even better solution, but then it's not the one in game.

And hey, if they do something right, I'll acknowledge it, probably with some more critique to fine tune it a bit more. There's always room for improvement and I think it'd be bad to become complacent or content. Please note that room for improvement doesn't at all times mean it needs to change right away. Hence why I tend to focus on the most important issues that do need fundamental changes to better the game massively IMO, especially if you only get a few chances to get those in (especially important to make such changes prior to launch) and why I'm so tenacious in those topics.

Huntsab · 2012-11-05, 04:23 AM

BlackOps 2 is out soon Figgy. The insta-gratification lot will be off then. I find your posts articulate and echo every gripe the veterans (the loyal customers, is SOE forgetting this?) have about PS2. They may as well introduce BFR's now. No point keeping them out when the game is designed this way

psijaka · 2012-11-05, 07:37 AM

PS1 vet bashing is only to be expected when some PS1 vets come across as elitist in the way they patronise newcomers (no disrespect intended to vet posters on this thread). Doesn't excuse it though, especially the name calling.

The opinion of vets *is* important, but then again so is the opinion of newcomers; they will probably form the majority of the player base after all, and may have valuable experience of other games to bring to the community.

Figment · 2012-11-05, 09:33 AM

Originally Posted by psijaka

PS1 vet bashing is only to be expected when some PS1 vets come across as elitist in the way they patronise newcomers (no disrespect intended to vet posters on this thread). Doesn't excuse it though, especially the name calling.

Honestly it's not elitism and it's not arrogance to claim to probably know better if one actually has more experience in a particular field. It doesn't sound humble, but it can actually be a fact. people just don't like to admit that others might have a better vantage point. :/

The opinion of vets *is* important, but then again so is the opinion of newcomers; they will probably form the majority of the player base after all, and may have valuable experience of other games to bring to the community.

Of course the new player opinion is important, but they predominantly add experience and commentary in terms of game accessibility. Their opinion is far more important in regards to if concepts and mechanics are communicated well so they can understand it and play, rather than determining which they should be. Veterans more or less skip that process largely because they're already familiar with it.

As far as other game experience is concerned, that's not new to the player base: PS1 vets basically play every other game in the world as well, so the newcomers don't really bring any new game input aside from games nobody else played maybe. What they will bring is similar input as PS1 vets already provide. And over time as they learn the new context, I'm quite confident their views won't differ that much either.

Perhaps the biggest difference will be the amount of acceptance of a class system, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't like an inventory or differently setup unit certification system better if they recognise the benefits or start seeking for ways to cut down on unit, ability and weapon type spam. Personally feel it's people that want to create more authority for themselves that try to pretend there's a world of anti-PS1-vets out there (poorly applied appeal to authority argument). It's funny when the smallest minority argues as if nobody would agree with PS1-vets on anything, ever, because we're all somehow obsolete ancient artifacts that have no link to the modern world and the present.

And they wonder why they induce negativity.

Rahabib · 2012-11-05, 09:42 AM

Heres the issue:

The game needs to be released in a decent time frame.
The game needs to be fun for all
The game needs to be relatively bug free

So lets take a look at #1. It seems a lot of what people are asking for is to scrap something implemented and to start over. For instance the Hex system, people keep asking to scrap it for the lattice system - that simply isnt going to happen unless you want to delay the game months. And for what? Instead of making suggestions that require a complete overhaul of something you are far better off asking to tweak something. An example is the deply range of Sunderers - it probably took them only a few hours to do that, its quick and easy. If you want something fixed, ask for minor things.

Now #2. The game needs to be fun for all, not just the hard core. For as much hate there is for COD, BF, and any other player, unless you only want to make the game for the existing PS1 community you have to make some concessions. Letting players do things with tanks by themselves is an example. If you force players to double up on the tanks, you will find the casual community irritated by it. Instead of multiple man tanks, they implemented better enhancements for second guns. How will it work out, we dont know yet, but maybe we should give it a try?

Now #3. Heres the main issue. We can bitch and moan about X or Y, but at the end of the day the game is just 2 weeks away from launch so bugs are the number one priority. It may be a month or two away before serious features are tweaked. I watched the last dev video (the twitch tv one that was about an hour long) and it seems they have a long laundry list of stuff they want to add and things they will add in. Personally, I think they addressed almost every concern I had - it just wont all be in on the 20th.

Figment · 2012-11-05, 09:49 AM

1. 3. Of course, but that's why people think the release is early.

And the Sundy overhaul took a number of weeks to implement and then a month to create animations for and get a lot of bugs out, it's still not feature complete and may need further tweaking. It's not that simple. Again, that's why a lot of people think it should be given time because after a release, people will have far harsher critiques and worse, may not give the game another chance a year later.

But about 2, Rahabib, did you ever see the casual community complain in PS1 about sharing vehicles? No. Do you hear casuals complain about the Liberator in PS2? No. That's a non-argument with no basis in statistics, interviews or whatever else even: it's based on pure assumption. Pure assumption gets no credit from anyone aside from those who make the assumption.

Rahabib · 2012-11-05, 10:18 AM

Originally Posted by Figment

But about 2, Rahabib, did you ever see the casual community complain in PS1 about sharing vehicles? No. Do you hear casuals complain about the Liberator in PS2? No. That's a non-argument with no basis in statistics, interviews or whatever else even: it's based on pure assumption. Pure assumption gets no credit from anyone aside from those who make the assumption.

Much of the "casual" community of PS2 didnt even play PS1.

Figment · 2012-11-05, 10:21 AM

Originally Posted by Rahabib

Much of the "casual" community didnt even play PS1.

Much of the casual community didn't even have broadband internet.

That doesn't mean that other casual gamers have distinctly other standards in terms of game play though.

The only thing you could argue is that a lot of gamers wern't interested in paying a subscription, let alone multiple MMO subscriptions, because that's actually fact, but PS2 really outperforms PS1 in that department, it being F2P.

sylphaen · 2012-11-05, 10:31 AM

One thing I thought about and would be interesting to point out is that in many cases, people need to have experienced something to truly understand how it feels. If never suffered, how can you understand someone suffering ? If you never experienced hard times, how can you understand people going through them ?

It's valid for many aspects of life.

Back to PS: PS1 improved over time (eg: the lattice system implemented post release) and for someone who did not experience the game before its improvements, it can be hard to understand how it was worse before and how some mechanics or systems improved the game. I could criticize the PS1 lattice for being too directive or hard-coded but I understand it help to create a dynamic gameplay with some directions. Pre-lattice, the back-hacking was pretty s***** f****** annoying gameplay. When there was no queue system for vehicle acquisition, it was also a nightmare. When only the CC hacker would get CEP for a base cap, it was also quite terrible (cloakers of the same team shooting each other to get the CEP since it was a "winner takes all" system).

The devs have a lot of ambition for PS2 and a vision that will take time to implement. If there is one good thing that may happen is that people will experience a not-there-yet game with flaws. They will whine about them and suggest ideas. Devs can then improve the game with support from the community instead of opposition.

I've been wondering if it's not what they were already doing but we'll see. Maybe one day, they'll change MBTs to be driver+gunner and tank spam will decrease and players will massively applaud this change.

As I say, it's hard to appreciate what you have unless you have known worse. Similarly, it's also hard to know better unless you have seen or tried different ways.

Rolfski · 2012-11-05, 12:27 PM

Originally Posted by LONGFELLA KOJ

I would love to see where the stat for "hundreds of thousands" comes from. I very much doubt hundreds of thousands are playing Planetside 2 beta. Sorry.

I had a hard time believing these stats as well but he kinda suggests it in this video (after 43 min mark).
Although he said he threw that number in (he was talking 300K), I'm fairly convinced there must be some base for that figure.

And if you do a rough calculation, a current player base of over hundred thousand is fairly possible imo. We have 5 servers now, each capped at 2000 players afaik, so total capacity is 10K. If less then 10 percent logs in at any time, their servers can handle it which doesn't seem an off usage percentage to me. Personally, I'm playing PS2 10 hours a week on average, which is probably above casual but still only 6% of my time.

Btw as an example, he was also using a number of 5 million players on day one. Highly speculative I know but to me, that suggests that they are aiming for at least a few million players with this game. Which is nothing btw compared to COD series (40 million active players) or WoW (10 million paying subscribers)