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Perplexed and a bit sad


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I'm going to share a true story. When Teddy Roosevelt created the National Park Service, they decided that wolves were too dangerous and powerful and a threat to the deer among other species. They set about to balance the scales by hunting down the wolves. As a result the deer population exploded and they began to starve instead.

I'm not saying to ignore balance, but understand that you will never achieve it, and that is OK

 

So, are you indicating we shouldn't attempt to maintain balance? What does that service do today? They sometimes introduce other animals to control the population I believe. Nature itself does the same thing to control populations, so instead of that, we should allow the world to remain flawed so someone can keep doing what they like even though to do so can ruin the game experience for the other play styles and/or lead to boredom because the game has become "too easy". I don't buy the line of logic with that precisely because all systems are a sum of their parts. If one part is broken or flawed, you fix it. :)

 

Not wearing my [TS] hat, but as a player in Live and in the EMU since New-Live:

- I can't comment on the End Game contents yet, since none of my toons have the CVE device nor the Walking Nighmare, but Gropos has a point:
What is the insentive for a Warrior to go through the 16 step of a mission in order to get a device that has the same buff as the one he has to give up? I understand that a non-Warrior class would want to have that device, but there is no point for a Warrior to do that mission.

 

There isn't one for a warrior, the device is 'special' in that it DOESN'T have the class restriction and allows the explorer and trader classes to achieve a level of turbo that was not available to them in live. (Hint: reading between the lines, the benefit is not for a warrior! ;)). Those other classes are capable of obtaining CVEs after all, even if they can't use them.

Regarding the discussions well.. i have no better way to say it than using a few pictures:

1425362-darth_vader_by_wraithdt.jpg

 

Your whining doesn't concern me, Admiral.

 

and well, for constructive information, ideas offered and genuine concerns about systems WITHOUT the attacks on devs personal characteristics or heritages I would let this one speak for it.

Evil_Fire_Bug_by_ObsidianX.jpg

 

 

Hope that clarifies a few things. 

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Kyp, I'm not at all saying to ignore balance. I am saying that you will never get it 100% right. Every step taken has the risk of or the likelihood of unintended consequences. In this case, how important was it that support classes do less damage?

Not to make light of it, but we are not talking about a 1 for 1 exchange here. If you have statistics, it would reason that the overwhelming majority of damage in game through Monday, was being done by warrior classes.

 

To take statistics in a different direction, since a dev already quoted this one on this thread, lets try this: If the waking nightmare is THE most widely owned turbo item on the server, for arguments sake lets say it takes 10 man hours to complete the quest line. I'd argue that while possible to do it much quicker, in practice the folks who have the item spent at least that over the course of the steps. Now multiply that times how many warrior class avatars possess the item. 100? That would mean that 1,000 man hours of player time in aggregate has been completely negated, and in fact penalized as the new WN is inferior to the CVE everyone started with (warrior class).

 

Pointing that out is not whining. It is highlighting the sometimes real world impact of unintended consequences.

 

On a second note, I happen to agree that jobs were overpowered. That said, at the risk of pissing everyone off, I am going to mention that which must not be mentioned: WoW. Though it infuriates hard core gamers (sound like anyone here you know?), one thing they get right in the big picture is that they make it very accessible to low level/new players. You might want to consider purposely imbalancing jobs at lower levels. Becoming 150 was a HUGE deal in early live. The first of us didn't do it until November, so I agree with you completely, that 150 should be an accomplishment. That said, the forum poll shows only 9 folks who are new to enb (that didn't play live). We need to attract and retain more folks like that.

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What I don't get is what is "balance" on those turbo weap buffs? I hear primary warrior players saying turbo should be primarily warrior buffs (I have a warrior or 3), I hear non-warrior players saying they would like turbo also and its a rip that they got nerfed out (I have a few traders and explorers as well). I've seen no concise explaination from anyone on dev team why turbo for one type is not inbalancing but is for another, I understand completely the argument that if there is to much that is stackable that inbalances to the players advantage vs. mobs and they don't want the headache of having to retool all the mobs to account for it (or the lack there of).

 

Please explain, in little words, what is inbalancing about a non-warrior to get turbo to X amount for any reason other than because it's that way. What says that a warrior only gets this buff simply because they are warrior and non-warriors shouldn't have it? I know in some corners just that simple utterance is utter heresy, but why? Well because isn't a answer. We aren't 3 yr. olds being put off by a parent saying "because I'm the mom and I say so!" We are "hopefully" adults :)

 

The argument that "well warriors should do more dmg, because they are warriors and turbo lets them and nobody else should have it", is patently flawed logic and silly even on the face of it. Turbo only lets you do what you do, only a fraction faster. A PW with 6 slots of dps and it's combat enhancements (combat trance, crit target, sting etc.) is putting out that same amount..only faster! A JE with 3 beams is putting out their dps, with turbo, only faster. Turbo don't enhance shield leech, it don't enhance eviro shield, it don't enhance repulsor shield, it don't enhance menace, it don't enhance ahck, biorepression, befriend, gravlink, psi shield, summon anything other than WEAPON FIRE RATE.

 

A warrior will always fire better than a nonwarrior period. A warriors  combat enhancements , be they stealth strike, crit target or +% dmg etc. are built into their base dps and turbo only enhances it, in fact if you want to talk "balance" turbo at some point is "unbalancing" for them, a non warriors dps gap will only widen ever further for a warriors due to turbo, a non-warrior will have an artificial dps cap that a warrior will not have and the disparity causes inbalance.

 

If there were devices that let non warriors buff to say 100% resistance that a warrior could never get and never had placed on them, would that be "balanced"? That would let a non warrior tank with never a scratch, and eventually kill the mob that the warrior would be subject to all it's dmg. and never be able to handle....that's sort of what the "turbo only warrior" mentality is doing. I'm not arguing they should EVER be over shadowed by a non-warrior in their niche, I'm pointing out the flawed logic, turbo only enhances 1 thing ROF.

 

Warrior Base Dmg of  X + 20% turbo = X( X * . 20) = N1

Non-warrior without turbo is X1

non-warrior with turbo is X1 + 20% turbo = X1(X1 * .20) = N2

 

Even if you give non warriors the exact same level of turbo, N2 will never be greater than N1, because X starts greater than X2. If you don't give then the exact same turbo buffs then the disparity between N1 and X1 only gets wider and wider and breaks the game.

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Youre still increasing x1 by 20 percent.

 

For super simplicity N1 + N2 = Expectation of player output.  Mob damage/balance is based around that.

 

If you increase either arbitrarily it throws the balance off.  We were prepared to absorb a 10-12 % increase to one, but not 20.

 

Its not at all about non warriors being able to outdamage warriors, nono, that would require a lot more.  Its about the overall picture.

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I will keep it short and sweet, I appreciate all the work the development teams do. I have enjoyed enb since it came out and now in the "live" emu. I still believe that all the features that the devs have implemented are better now than live, basicly because they love the game and want others to enjoy it too. Not sure why some people feel the need to be so critical of the N7 team when they are doing their best. Im sorry to hear that a member of the dev team quit, just means less hands helping out.

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Ok this is gonna sound like "I told you so" but I don't care. I don't want anything I say to be construed as a criticism of the devs because it isn't. However.. Many of us who played all the STs and beta have witnessed the evolution of the game. When ST first came out explore XP was set at 4x!!, open up a gas cloud in glenn and you had a great chance of finding a stack of 300 gas right there!! And if you found a lvl 9 roid, well you could just sit next to it because it respawned as soon as you mined it!!! All obvious glitches. There have been many other adjustments and improvements along the way. No-one complained at the time when these XP cash cows were rightly removed because that's what a ST and beta is for, to iron out these issues. This is where we get to the "I told you so" bit..  

 

The Emu went "live" too soon. I and others expressed suprise at the announcement, beta had lasted only about 6 months. Stress test 4 dragged on for over 2 years without a wipe as shouldn't have been. The devs asked everyone to play new toons so they could study the levelling, but most got an easy "leg up" from big bro 150! Concern from those not wanting lose their toons in a wipe grew the longer ST4 went on, the fact that it was a ST was almost forgotten. When the announcement was made that we were finally going "live" we were told that the game was practically finished and that work would now focus on content. Unfortunately it was not ready, balance is difficult to gauge over the 6 months of beta. If all the recent fixes/corrections/"nerfs" had been implemented during a BETA environment there would have been none of this outrage, it would have been accepted as part of the developement of the game (which it is of course).

 

So I propose a solution, a solution that will impact myself as much as anyone else in this game.

 

Keep working towards getting the balance right, reach a conensus with the majority of the playerbase when you're satisfied that all exploits/issues/imbalances have been settled... 

 

and WIPE.

 

Start afresh once again, safe in the knowledge that all currently implemented items/missions/game mechanics would not be adjusted. The reason there are many dissenting voices here is the perception that the goalposts are being moved after the game has started. We are playing in what we are told is the final "live" iteration of the Emu, but recently the game has had a very "beta" feel about it.

 

So wipe it and fire it up again when the balance you are looking to reach is broadly achieved.  

 

It will kill my accounts, many of you may know that for the first 6 months of the Emu since we went "live" I was able to play almost 24/7. It enabled me to build up my toons quickly, without macro (I wouldn't even know how to) or any other illeagal activities! I am now in employment and my game time is reduced accordingly, so if wipe comes i'll never ever be able to get back to where I am now. No chance. However I would support a move to redesignate the current game as "beta2" with promise of going "live" again when the devs and the players together feel the game is ready because I believe it would probably be better for the Emu.

 

One more thing. The most important thing to many in the game is not a nerfed mssion or item, it is the constant crashing/locking up everytime a gate is passed through or a wormhole activated. Find a way to bypass the login server when changing sectors and I suspect that the issue will go away. For many this is a more important than any other issue, and surely more fundamental than content/nerf issues.

 

Whatever direction the Emu takes, I hope that the player > dev > player feelings improve. Upon consideration the Job XP halving is appropriate (not sure about the credit rewards - that's what trade runs are for afterall, but I digress) and the Waking Nightmare explanation is fair enough even if the "fix" was a long time coming and somewhat sudden when it arrived. By the same token the Devs need to view some of the views expressed in this thread (and post patch on tuesdays) as "constructive criticism" and perhaps not retaliate with terms like "whine/whinge", afterall, players only voice their opinions this strongly because they love the game and feel passionately about it. No-one here hates the game!

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Face, I respect your well thought out post and position, but there is no going back. The term "live" has been used and the promise has been made that there will "never" be a wipe again. Folks who dabbled in ST off and on, but didn't commit as much time as they might have, did so because they knew a wipe was coming and did not want to get emotionally invested. The breach of trust involved in a wipe now, after the literal promise of no such thing, would be insurmountable.

 

As a player base, we are absolutely passionate. Some folks will whine all the time and have all their lives. Many more will try to be constructive and the overwhelming rest are the silent majority. There may be moment where people get pissed or frustrated at the devs, but they are only moments and it is because they care so deeply. The community as a whole, to their core, respect, and appreciate the devs and all they have done and sacrificed. Wiping now, for whatever reason, would break that trust forever. It simply can't be done without literally destroying the game.

 

You hit on it anyway. I agree completely that the player base as whole wants a stable game more than anything. Stability also means knowing that if they went through hell for the challenge and satisfaction of doing Agrippa, they aren't going to have to do it again some day.

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sorry but I'm with Zackman here.  while it is possible to disagree.  We don't need the name calling.  As for getting to the end game.  it's not a race.  i was in ST3 and 4 and have been back in new live since last may.  I still don't have a toon higher than 83 simply because I'm taking my time and playing all the professions and just enjoying the game.

 

The Dev's have done an amazing job when you consider they had to recreate the server code from half forgotten memories and screen shots of how the client worked!

 

The fact that they have then gone on to add new sectors and content take it beyond the pale.

YES the old code from the original game has been rewritten from scratch so has been a very  Gargantuan Job ! Seems to me we are not far off on the game play from live ! ? And going forward every day with new content fixes ! The story line will be advancing in the near future as the main coders @ Developers get done with the big projects they have in Real life Jobs !

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Youre still increasing x1 by 20 percent.

 

For super simplicity N1 + N2 = Expectation of player output.  Mob damage/balance is based around that.

 

If you increase either arbitrarily it throws the balance off.  We were prepared to absorb a 10-12 % increase to one, but not 20.

 

Its not at all about non warriors being able to outdamage warriors, nono, that would require a lot more.  Its about the overall picture.

Honestly some classes could use the DPS boost seeing how you guys keep ponying for 4+ group raids when it's difficult to get that many players together (at least the times I play) in the first place. I know the emulator may say "400 players online", but when most of us are running 2-4 characters at once, that's really not a lot of people.

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As an old lover of the original E&B I had no idea this project was even underway so imagine my utter surprise when I follow a posting on mmorpg.com to here! All I can say is THANK YOU! You have no idea what it means to me to play this game again nor will I bore anyone with details of my son and I playing this during an incredibly difficult time and seeing it again after all these years... After reading this thread I just have to point a few things out: Don't blame the devs for design decisions made by another group of people well over a decade ago. This game was stupid easy to bot ten years ago and it is a result of design choices made long ago. There never was any balance amongst the classes! Pw's could out kill a JE ten to one. JE's had one use: batteries for pw reactors. Drop rates on anything worthwhile were crazy low, raids crashed and bugged out A LOT, kill stealing and ninja looting raids was not uncommon. Oh Combat exp was easier to get than the other two. Trade exp was best leveled by selling loot, explore exp...remember running tours? Remember endless hours of pointless mining? It was ALWAYS faster just to go farm mobs and use clexp overrun to level up explore. All these warts and many many more are the result of decisions made by Westwood studios not some issue with this current edition! The fact that we are even able to play this again at all is frankly amazing! But don't get lost in the games imperfections now, it never was perfect (and frankly it did close). Play it, love it for all its' warts, but above all support it this time so we don't lose an amazing second chance!
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Some of you may know me, some of you may not.  I've been playing and doing what I can since the mid-way point of ST2. 

 

I have posted frequently on the Agrippa series of missions, worked with Byah extensively on the clarity of those missions during beta.  I've written a starters guide for the PP.  And, I've been very supportive of the efforts of the development team all the way through this process.  I've done what I've could through this process from helping players, to helping staff (I was one of the first few to test Moto back in the day), and have never asked, begged, or whined unless something was unclear, broken, or unbalanced. 

 

Most of the "old timers" know how often I had helped, built, given locations of spawns, or many other things I've done for them through the years.  I say this not to tout my own horn, but to give some idea from where my comments are coming on this topic.

 

The development team, for reasons that are not known to many any more, tend to be a secretive bunch.  They have always been tight-lipped about things relating to content.  This issue has been a major source of player frustration for years.  Hell, they recognize this and have reached out to give the "player" a spot via the Advocate position.  The role of the advocate should be to be the intermediary between staff and the common player.  In a perfect world the "whining" threads wouldn't be needed because the advocate would be just that.... an extension of the greater player base expressing concerns and outcomes to the staff of the general player population.  Unfortunately, with the advocate position becoming a mere popularity contest, egos have gotten in the way in the past.

 

Gropos (with full disclosure in mind) and I played live together.  We have been friends since I first stepped foot in the EnB galaxy so many years ago.  He brings up some very valid points about the risk of alienating the casual player.  To dismiss complaints as "whining" or other wise denigrate people that are voicing their own concerns is as insulting as it can be.  Conversely, the development staff should not be roundly assailed at every turn in game, on the boards, and in pm's.  All the way around, it isn't conducive to the process of solving the problems at hand.  The staff find it equally insulting some of the comments without thought or tact that are written.  Thus, you get this circle formed like this thread has tried to devolve into becoming.

 

That all being said, just because something was not in "retail" or has now changed from that vision that in too many of our minds is fuzzy, why not try and constructively address your concerns.  Trust me, if I can get through Byahkee that there were "issues" with Agrippa, these other issues are simple in comparison.  It may take a little while, so show some patience and understand that at the absolutely earliest changes will take a couple of weeks.  It is not as simple as deleting a line of code or adding one. 

 

The boards always get so little attention from the vast majority of the players in a game, I would suggest that the next Advocate host a once or twice weekly "session" live in the game and it NOT require TS.  Perhaps the creation of an "advocate chat" channel would be available for players to use.  That way the chat would be outside the standard chat lines within the game.  Something as simple as better communication would go a LONG ways in solving a lot of the issues that exist.

 

/end wall o'text

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Wall o'text? Heck Nate, you used grammar, paragraphs and everything this time!

 

Seriously though, as in life, communication is everything. If there is one true statement of fact, beyond death and taxes, it is that people, as a whole,  ASSUME THE WORST. The only way to successfully address this very human nature is through communication.

 

At the risk of it being lost in what is now a very long thread, I have a suggestion: Detailed patch notes that flesh out changes a little and provide context for the more controversial changes.

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Kyp, I'm not at all saying to ignore balance. I am saying that you will never get it 100% right. Every step taken has the risk of or the likelihood of unintended consequences. In this case, how important was it that support classes do less damage?

Not to make light of it, but we are not talking about a 1 for 1 exchange here. If you have statistics, it would reason that the overwhelming majority of damage in game through Monday, was being done by warrior classes.

 

To take statistics in a different direction, since a dev already quoted this one on this thread, lets try this: If the waking nightmare is THE most widely owned turbo item on the server, for arguments sake lets say it takes 10 man hours to complete the quest line. I'd argue that while possible to do it much quicker, in practice the folks who have the item spent at least that over the course of the steps. Now multiply that times how many warrior class avatars possess the item. 100? That would mean that 1,000 man hours of player time in aggregate has been completely negated, and in fact penalized as the new WN is inferior to the CVE everyone started with (warrior class).

 

Pointing that out is not whining. It is highlighting the sometimes real world impact of unintended consequences.

 

On a second note, I happen to agree that jobs were overpowered. That said, at the risk of pissing everyone off, I am going to mention that which must not be mentioned: WoW. Though it infuriates hard core gamers (sound like anyone here you know?), one thing they get right in the big picture is that they make it very accessible to low level/new players. You might want to consider purposely imbalancing jobs at lower levels. Becoming 150 was a HUGE deal in early live. The first of us didn't do it until November, so I agree with you completely, that 150 should be an accomplishment. That said, the forum poll shows only 9 folks who are new to enb (that didn't play live). We need to attract and retain more folks like that.

 

Of course you will never get it 100% right, but we can get a hell of a lot closer than currently.

All programming has the risk / likelihood of unintended consequences, that's how we make them better, after all. ;)

 

Pointing out a problem is not whining, pointing it out and saying "This sucks, I hate you all." is. On the other hand, saying "This sucks, here's why... now here's what *I* would do if I were you." without ever issuing an insult would get a much better response.

 

 

What I don't get is what is "balance" on those turbo weap buffs? I hear primary warrior players saying turbo should be primarily warrior buffs (I have a warrior or 3), I hear non-warrior players saying they would like turbo also and its a rip that they got nerfed out (I have a few traders and explorers as well). I've seen no concise explaination from anyone on dev team why turbo for one type is not inbalancing but is for another, I understand completely the argument that if there is to much that is stackable that inbalances to the players advantage vs. mobs and they don't want the headache of having to retool all the mobs to account for it (or the lack there of).

 

Please explain, in little words, what is inbalancing about a non-warrior to get turbo to X amount for any reason other than because it's that way. What says that a warrior only gets this buff simply because they are warrior and non-warriors shouldn't have it? I know in some corners just that simple utterance is utter heresy, but why? Well because isn't a answer. We aren't 3 yr. olds being put off by a parent saying "because I'm the mom and I say so!" We are "hopefully" adults :)

 

The argument that "well warriors should do more dmg, because they are warriors and turbo lets them and nobody else should have it", is patently flawed logic and silly even on the face of it. Turbo only lets you do what you do, only a fraction faster. A PW with 6 slots of dps and it's combat enhancements (combat trance, crit target, sting etc.) is putting out that same amount..only faster! A JE with 3 beams is putting out their dps, with turbo, only faster. Turbo don't enhance shield leech, it don't enhance eviro shield, it don't enhance repulsor shield, it don't enhance menace, it don't enhance ahck, biorepression, befriend, gravlink, psi shield, summon anything other than WEAPON FIRE RATE.

 

A warrior will always fire better than a nonwarrior period. A warriors  combat enhancements , be they stealth strike, crit target or +% dmg etc. are built into their base dps and turbo only enhances it, in fact if you want to talk "balance" turbo at some point is "unbalancing" for them, a non warriors dps gap will only widen ever further for a warriors due to turbo, a non-warrior will have an artificial dps cap that a warrior will not have and the disparity causes inbalance.

 

If there were devices that let non warriors buff to say 100% resistance that a warrior could never get and never had placed on them, would that be "balanced"? That would let a non warrior tank with never a scratch, and eventually kill the mob that the warrior would be subject to all it's dmg. and never be able to handle....that's sort of what the "turbo only warrior" mentality is doing. I'm not arguing they should EVER be over shadowed by a non-warrior in their niche, I'm pointing out the flawed logic, turbo only enhances 1 thing ROF.

 

Warrior Base Dmg of  X + 20% turbo = X( X * . 20) = N1

Non-warrior without turbo is X1

non-warrior with turbo is X1 + 20% turbo = X1(X1 * .20) = N2

 

Even if you give non warriors the exact same level of turbo, N2 will never be greater than N1, because X starts greater than X2. If you don't give then the exact same turbo buffs then the disparity between N1 and X1 only gets wider and wider and breaks the game.

 

The balance we refer to is affecting all classes/archetypes. 20% turbo would have been unheard of for a JE, for example. Nothing says they *shouldn't* have it, but something does say they *shouldn't have so much of it*. If you think the logic was that "only warriors can have it" as you put it, you may need to go back and re-examine what we're saying. We aren't using this as logic or justification. The justification is that an explorer is suddenly equivalent to a trader, and a trader is suddenly equivalent to a warrior in terms of damage, and a warrior becomes relegated to the bin. The explorer and trader SHOULD NOT match or exceed a warrior class in DPS, it isn't meant to be this way and it won't.

 

You aren't seeing the math behind the scenes here, otherwise you'd know that such a large increase is directly enhancing DPS because of the way Turbo works, and it is increasing DPS to obscene levels for those classes that shouldn't have that much. This results in the only method for balance being to raise mob HP/SP  until they are ridiculous, but this creates other problems (as you all so recently found out with all the bouncing around necessary for healers).

 

If there were devices for the other classes designed to increase resistances, we'd never allow them to go any higher than was reasonable to maintain balance, but a 100% resistance would be unbalanced for all classes.

 

ROF = Not accurate. If we went back to the base original live calc you'd see a direct increase in frequency of fire (which I assume is what you mean by rate of fire). While that still appears to happen to some extent the formula is exactly like the latter part of the live game and increases DPS. Without revealing entirely too much about how it works:

 

m_ReadyTime = myTime + unsigned long(m_ItemInstance.WeaponReload * 1000.0f * (1.0f-turboAmount/100));

 

This is how the ROF part of it is actually calculated, or in more layman's terms: ready to fire = yourcurrentcooldown + (weaponReloadTime * 1000 seconds * (1second-turboAmount/100)) So, if you had a turbo amount of say 40% and a beam with a 6 second refire rate shown on it

 

ROF = Cooldown + (2.0 * 1000 * (1-40.0/100))

So the final is:

ROF = Cooldown + (1200ms)

or
ROF = Cooldown + 1.2 seconds (note this is just a small part of the code that deals with reload and so on but it prevents the 1:1 direct percentage increase of DPS along with the fire rate when all is said and done, but it DOES increase DPS and beyond what those classes should have because they begin to exceed the others. We prevent that gap from "getting wider and wider" through more code. :)

 

 

 

Ok this is gonna sound like "I told you so" but I don't care. I don't want anything I say to be construed as a criticism of the devs because it isn't. However.. Many of us who played all the STs and beta have witnessed the evolution of the game. When ST first came out explore XP was set at 4x!!, open up a gas cloud in glenn and you had a great chance of finding a stack of 300 gas right there!! And if you found a lvl 9 roid, well you could just sit next to it because it respawned as soon as you mined it!!! All obvious glitches. There have been many other adjustments and improvements along the way. No-one complained at the time when these XP cash cows were rightly removed because that's what a ST and beta is for, to iron out these issues. This is where we get to the "I told you so" bit..  

 

The Emu went "live" too soon. I and others expressed suprise at the announcement, beta had lasted only about 6 months. Stress test 4 dragged on for over 2 years without a wipe as shouldn't have been. The devs asked everyone to play new toons so they could study the levelling, but most got an easy "leg up" from big bro 150! Concern from those not wanting lose their toons in a wipe grew the longer ST4 went on, the fact that it was a ST was almost forgotten. When the announcement was made that we were finally going "live" we were told that the game was practically finished and that work would now focus on content. Unfortunately it was not ready, balance is difficult to gauge over the 6 months of beta. If all the recent fixes/corrections/"nerfs" had been implemented during a BETA environment there would have been none of this outrage, it would have been accepted as part of the developement of the game (which it is of course).

 

So I propose a solution, a solution that will impact myself as much as anyone else in this game.

 

Keep working towards getting the balance right, reach a conensus with the majority of the playerbase when you're satisfied that all exploits/issues/imbalances have been settled... 

 

and WIPE.

 

Start afresh once again, safe in the knowledge that all currently implemented items/missions/game mechanics would not be adjusted. The reason there are many dissenting voices here is the perception that the goalposts are being moved after the game has started. We are playing in what we are told is the final "live" iteration of the Emu, but recently the game has had a very "beta" feel about it.

 

So wipe it and fire it up again when the balance you are looking to reach is broadly achieved.  

 

It will kill my accounts, many of you may know that for the first 6 months of the Emu since we went "live" I was able to play almost 24/7. It enabled me to build up my toons quickly, without macro (I wouldn't even know how to) or any other illeagal activities! I am now in employment and my game time is reduced accordingly, so if wipe comes i'll never ever be able to get back to where I am now. No chance. However I would support a move to redesignate the current game as "beta2" with promise of going "live" again when the devs and the players together feel the game is ready because I believe it would probably be better for the Emu.

 

One more thing. The most important thing to many in the game is not a nerfed mssion or item, it is the constant crashing/locking up everytime a gate is passed through or a wormhole activated. Find a way to bypass the login server when changing sectors and I suspect that the issue will go away. For many this is a more important than any other issue, and surely more fundamental than content/nerf issues.

 

Whatever direction the Emu takes, I hope that the player > dev > player feelings improve. Upon consideration the Job XP halving is appropriate (not sure about the credit rewards - that's what trade runs are for afterall, but I digress) and the Waking Nightmare explanation is fair enough even if the "fix" was a long time coming and somewhat sudden when it arrived. By the same token the Devs need to view some of the views expressed in this thread (and post patch on tuesdays) as "constructive criticism" and perhaps not retaliate with terms like "whine/whinge", afterall, players only voice their opinions this strongly because they love the game and feel passionately about it. No-one here hates the game!

 

 

I'll grant you that, perhaps it did go Live too soon. I wasn't expecting the architecture problems we had, but we'd have never have known until we "turned it up" to live. We're all about listening to a constructive opinion or argument, but the first time you insult, you might as well consider the rest of the post ignored, most of us won't read beyond that point. As far as your idea, it would probably work but I promised folks no more wipes. That being said, there's no way I can go back on that word without offending a lot more people than this change does, I'd think.

 

As far as the bugs and such go, the problem is that they aren't so easy to fix sometimes. We MUST be able to reproduce a bug to see where it is going wrong. If you can supply a bug that is reproducible, post about it on the bug tracker, we will solve it if we can repeat it.

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We also shouldn't forget, that many of the classes, if not all of them, do have weapons available to them that provide 40% turbo (equip), before figuring in activated turbo.   All Jenquai get the DG beam, though those should be rare.  Eventually the Ruby Disruptor will be in game if it's to go like live, and while L8 it also gives 40% turbo.  JE will eventually get the Amah's Anger & the Gaze of Amah as class specific beams, don't know what's in the JT's future there but I'd imagine she would eventually get something comparable to what the JE gets.

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Basically the world has evolved to where children get trophies in sports even if they lose every game, are told its ok to lose and fail, have a huge sense of entitlement and honestly it's trickling to every aspect of our society, including video games. What I see here is a bunch of people, regardless of age, intelligence, nationality, that feel its ok to say what they want, treat people how they want all while long, not taking into consideration they have a gift that has been handed to them. You know something else? We(the community) have the ability to influence and evolve this game (no its not retail, EA, get over it) to whatever we want, while preserving the aspects of the game that has kept us here all these years. If people truly put as much heart and soul into creating productive, helpful, realistic suggestions to the Devs vs constantly kicking the Devs in the nuts, Lord knows where we would be and what type of cool things we would have. The majority of the suggestions that make sense and are able to be added without modifing the client end up in the game, which is awesome. Few current games evolutions are influenced by there players as much as this game is. Fact of the matter is you have two choices, be a part of the solution, give constructive feedback, offer viable suggestions or create the poisoned well that ends up killing something we have already lost once. Right now I see way more people posioning the well.
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You may SEE more people "poisoning the well", but I choose to believe that is because many people only come to the forums when they have a complaint.

 

I choose to believe that most players are very appreciative of what the developers have done but typically show by continuing to quietly play.  They hardly ever read/comment on the forums, they play.

 

Therefore, the forums collect a few of us forum readers, and a bunch of players with gripes.  Since they only come to the forums to express discontent over changes in the game, they have no idea of the accepted way to express themselves.

 

State your perceived problem, why is seems wrong to you, and what you think should be done to fix it.  All without name-calling or insults.  This last part it very difficult for some idiots (just kidding, just kidding).    :)

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Basically the world has evolved to where children get trophies in sports even if they lose every game, are told its ok to lose and fail, have a huge sense of entitlement and honestly it's trickling to every aspect of our society, including video games. What I see here is a bunch of people, regardless of age, intelligence, nationality, that feel its ok to say what they want, treat people how they want all while long, not taking into consideration they have a gift that has been handed to them. You know something else? We(the community) have the ability to influence and evolve this game (no its not retail, EA, get over it) to whatever we want, while preserving the aspects of the game that has kept us here all these years. If people truly put as much heart and soul into creating productive, helpful, realistic suggestions to the Devs vs constantly kicking the Devs in the nuts, Lord knows where we would be and what type of cool things we would have. The majority of the suggestions that make sense and are able to be added without modifing the client end up in the game, which is awesome. Few current games evolutions are influenced by there players as much as this game is. Fact of the matter is you have two choices, be a part of the solution, give constructive feedback, offer viable suggestions or create the poisoned well that ends up killing something we have already lost once. Right now I see way more people posioning the well.

I agree with this post.  

 

Just this morning I was in the grocery store, waiting to check out behind a shopping cart with only 4 items in it.  The people in front of that cart were almost done, I didn't see anyone else running to the apparent abandoned cart so I asked if it was their cart.  Their answer was "Oh we didn't want those items" I could have a.) Kept quiet and moved the cart, b.) Moved the cart and grumbled under my breath, or c.) Tell them it was unacceptable to just park a cart in the checkout isle with items in it.

 

I chose c.  They bought the items rather than put them back or move the cart out of the check out lane.  

 

The moral is; Speak out when it is needed.  Being one of the grumbling masses and not voicing your opinion does nothing to further the game nor your sense of well being.  

 

P.S. Care must be taken to not be called a whiner when voicing your opinion.  I (when I play) reserve the right to have one whine per day.  These usually are met with laughter and or the odd occasional agreement.

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You know, I left the EMU back when it was in ST 4 because it was incomplete and I knew there would be a wipe. I came back when I found out it had finally gone live and here's what I have to say.

Awesome.

Just that.

I don't care about people griping that Warrior classes have to shoot faster than everyone else, or that everyone has to have an item that never actually existed in Retail.

I care that the game is here, running, and that it's still fun. If you have fun min-maxing yourself then don't play this game. It will keep changing and evolving. But then again thats why i came back, it will keep growing so long as we have people giving their feedback in constructive ways.

Yeah, okay, ore field guardians are a pain in the butt, however given time I am certain someone can come up with a solution. I haven't encountered many yet as I am just starting out again but I am sure that given time I will actually find something that works and suggest it or ask to see if I can do it myself.

Why?

Because I can actually ask and try and for no other reason.

Just felt like I had to add in my two cents on this after going through four pages on this thread :P

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Thanks for the explaination Kyp, and even in little words (and bigger :)) and I'm not trying to nitpick what you said either, just one thing I disagree (kind of) is this:

 

The justification is that an explorer is suddenly equivalent to a trader, and a trader is suddenly equivalent to a warrior in terms of damage, and a warrior becomes relegated to the bin. The explorer and trader SHOULD NOT match or exceed a warrior class in DPS, it isn't meant to be this way and it won't.

 

Since the game caps at L150, to advance to a L151 so to speak, you have to do that through "gear".  It would seem (to me at least) that a explorer should be as good as a trader, and a trader should be as good as a warrior, IF, ( a big if)  they had end game gear and the said explorer/trader/warrior they were being compared,  hadn't got to that end game gear stage, that's the allure of getting the end game gear after all!  To be so much better at what you do, even as good as the next "tier" of player so to speak, that you are a expert. Of course a like geared warrior shouldn't be out dpsed by a like geared trader, and a like geared explorer shouldn't be out doing a trader.

 

I totally agree and understand that you guys deemed that a +20% turbo was bending the curve to much and causing future problems, I even was understanding the ones that worked hard to turn a +12% tradable into a +20% being nerfed down to a +12% nontrade being upset, even can get behind the "but it opens it up to those that didn't have access to a item now being able to now". What I was pointing out wasn't even meant as a criticism towards what you guys had to do. It was what I saw in response, to what had to be done, what was being said in the forum. It was the "warrior only" mentality I saw being expressed by respondants that I was posting to.

 

Your post explaining the math, hopefully opens the eyes of them that think that way. The warrior will never be religated to the bin if he stays on the upcurve of gear, just like the trader won't nor the explorer. If you were planning a raid, and it was going to be very difficult and a squeeker of a raid, you would of course want the best tool for the job, you would want a warrior geared over a nongeared, a trader geared over a nongeared etc. But even if all you had at hand was a nongeared warrior, and geared everything else, you wouldn't plug in the geared everything else in the warrior slot, they have their utility that the geared everything else don't have. In a proper raid, no class is in the bin, somewere in that raid a classes skill set should be needed, geared or not, turboed or not.

 

I can even give an example (even if it is Old Live (tm) example):

My PS was maxed geared, he had all the great stuff and I played him more than any other toon, I knew just what they could do, and had the timing and skills down to a "T". When some other players would grief on my guilders in areas like Antares and KS grief etc. It was my PS I would pull out, not my JD or PW or TE, to go teach the offenders a lesson. My PS, because of gear and tactics could out dps a base line warrior any day of the week. Most of those griefers were base line toons, they hadn't developed "manners" yet and had to be taught to play nice. The lesson was even more effective coming from a supposed "inferior dps" explorer to a cocky base line warrior. They were usually shocked and wanted to know how I out KSed them, some even went so far as to accuse me of "using hacks!" ( the war cry of the inept).

 

So a geared PS actually was "better" than a trader or warrior, he was more than "equivalent", because of skill and gear. A like geared warrior (with skill of course) should easily out dps, I guess what I'm trying to say with all this is ,it's the mindset that wants to reserve a ever increasing gap in gear to one class or another for the simple fact of just being that class that disturbs me is all.

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My Two Bobs worth.

I can see alot of people are unhappy with the changes.  I dont disagree with the reasoning I just think it could have been handled better. From what I heard  not all the GMs were aware so perhaps these sorts of thing need to be put out there and let the players get used to the idea first. :mellow:

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Put in an NPC, for one week, that will trade a warriors (only) Waking Nightmare for their CVE back and another item. 

 

Not sure what that item should be, but something to make up for the long mission.  Maybe something like a Sting but that everyone can use.  It should be 'no trade' of course.

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