Changing items after the fact (Full Version)

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Nexus... -> Changing items after the fact (8/17/2012 8:00:29)

Please discuss how changing items after release effects the game. Don't you think the staff should balance test/evaluate beforehand so what we purchase is what we actually get? I know I do. It really frustrates me when I buy an item, to find that it is absurdly OP and must be nerfed the next week. This then leads to me getting something I didn't buy, but in fact an altered version of my purchase. This has happened most recently with the new robot, but also before with items like Founder Armor, and of course the "balance changes" that have yet to fix all of our broken classes.

So discuss, how does changing items after the fact effect the game, and would you like to see more testing beforehand so this doesn't happen in the future?


Prophet



ReinXI -> RE: Changing items after the fact (8/17/2012 8:58:14)

short awnser... yes / get over it?

hate to break it to you but that's just how the cookie crumbles. Sometimes even the staff make mistakes game developers aren't all some all knowing yin-yang balance inducing force.
Yes there should be extensive testing before something is released. But sometimes things slip through people are pushed by due dates and schedules. This in turn leads to "hic-ups" in
the development process where something get through that wasn't intended. And if you pull the "oh well I payed varium thats real money$$$" card.. well there WAS a credit option which
are an infinite source of in-game currency if you were to lazy to farm for it ( did not take long at all for me and I just got back... ) so really if you feel it was wasted varium then by all means
complain till your keyboard explodes it still is your fault for using varium.

Again I don't mean to sound harsh.. but tis reality crap happens and when it does you go with it.. you know when life gives you lemons.. all that good stuff



Nexus... -> RE: Changing items after the fact (8/17/2012 10:20:45)

First of all this is a discussion thread, not a hate/complaint thread...so treat it like one. Second of all, I was not talking about the new Robot specifically, but the idea that they change items after the fact in general. Please read the entire post before commenting.


Thanks,


Prophet



helloguy -> RE: Changing items after the fact (8/17/2012 10:26:36)

And do it way too often



ScarletReaper -> RE: Changing items after the fact (8/17/2012 10:29:49)

To answer your question nexus, yes they should test extensively before releases. Why don't they? Time constraints. If they don't release it in enough time, 90% of the forum population gets upset and starts to badmouth them as if they could do better themselves. They'd rather have an unfinished product than wait an extra week for the finished version. Is it right? no. Will it ever change? no.



Dreiko Shadrack -> RE: Changing items after the fact (8/17/2012 10:34:28)

PvP games are notoriously hard to balance, I can save you the trouble of trying to find one where the balance is perfect because there isn't one. The simple facts of the matter are that some items only become a problem after another item is released, whether it's because their combination is overpowered or because the former has become too weak when compared to the latter where the curve says it shouldn't means they need to be changed. Sometimes there's also the fact that you just plain don't see the problem in an item until you get it in game and have the player masses have at it.
Now it's not an unfair expectation that players should want a stable game with stable features but this just isn't going to happen most of the time. Especially considering that while the developers of this game have been picked up by Artix Entertainment this is still their first foray into games (or at least their first professional one) and a certain amount of mistakes are to be expected. Heck even from experienced devs a certain amount of mistakes are to be expected.



helloguy -> RE: Changing items after the fact (8/17/2012 10:54:24)

I'm just saying it happens way too often



Wonderp Bread -> RE: Changing items after the fact (8/17/2012 10:56:28)

As an Assistant Developer from HeroSmash, I know first hand how many issues can arise from inputting items into the game and I agree whole-heartedly with Dreiko and ReinXI.

The truth is that with as much testing as we do, accidents do happen and unforseen circumstances do come up that cause glitches or break the balance of the game. As much testing as we do before releases, it'll never amount to the testing it'll get once it's released to thousands of players. Its impossible to put out the weekly releases we all know and love in this amount of time without a team much larger than the one we have.

So basically, you guys, the players, are that team. We listen to your feedback about things that are over-powered, under-powered, glitched, whatever, and we make changes accordingly. My favorite aspect of AE that made me so determined to be a part of it was it's interactivity with its players. Unfortunately, we can't always please everyone, but we try to keep things as fair to everyone as possible. Nonetheless, someone will end up disappointed, and for that we apologize, but please try and bear with us, because we always do our best!

Battleon!



King FrostLich -> RE: Changing items after the fact (8/17/2012 11:04:03)

In order to balance a game, a developer or tester requires to act as the player himself and understand each class's strength and weaknesses(and the bots of course). If one skill or weapon makes it increasingly overpowered and one class/build can defeat it, it's not considered balanced. Take for example plasma armor for cyber hunters. Sure even with people that have high strength can deal with them but what else? Just more strength users going to defeat it and one build to rule them all. If I was made a mod or a balance tester, I'd completely balance this game quickly since I understand how classes work with one another especially with their own skills. There may be luck factors but with the right skill, it's considered balanced and strategy based. If ED wants to succeed well than Oversoul then the devs need to also balance this game or else many of us will end up getting there.



Ranloth -> RE: Changing items after the fact (8/17/2012 11:08:45)

King, whilst that's true with Dev or Tester trying to be a player. Even a group of them cannot see all the problems as the community might with bigger variety of builds to test. Otherwise yes I do agree with you but also share same views with Dreiko, ReinXI and Wonderp.

(sorry, missed you Rein.. :P)



ReinXI -> RE: Changing items after the fact (8/17/2012 11:10:32)

at some of the above posts heres something to think about... what gives you more info? 10 people testing for 5 hours or 1000 people testing for 1 hour? yeah... the conclusion is sometimes just release the item or items or event and just see what pops up from the user base. Guaranteed if something is to be found that needs to be fixed it WILL be found very quickly. Yes maybe keep
things out to test a little longer the problem with alot of the user base is its a double edged sword... If they are late to a release due to testing people whine and complain about it taking to long. BUT if they release a semi-tested item that turns out to be flawed they get whined and complained at by people for releasing an overpowered ( or underpowered ) item. So in all honesty I say these guys being able to do a release a week normally while keeping the game semi-balanced ( yeah yeah we all know CH to rule them all ) you know what I mean. And if you think I'm crazy you try building a game from scratch.



King FrostLich -> RE: Changing items after the fact (8/17/2012 11:39:23)

No, I did not mean testing ALL builds players use/the entire population of ED playing on a server. What I meant is the builds that are often represented as OP or UP or even balanced ones. It doesn't take much effort once you completely memorized and utilized each build. All you need are 6 balance testers in one class and testing it on each other with different variety of attack. I've been playing this game for 3 years and of course I know alot about this game, you don't have to completely nerf everything. Buffing classes are fine provided they do not give too much advantage in combat which is the perfect example of cyber hunter in this case. Even with static charge nerfed in the past, it's still making the class overpowered because of plasma armor and EMP being spammed though I heard not much do this anymore which is quite strange.

Blood Mages were nerfed only from changing Berzerker to Bludgeon but it's not completely balanced. Since Bludgeon has 2x less mana than Berzerker, it can be used twice if mana reservation is applied. Caster tech mages are by far annoying somehow but giving 29 mana as the cost for plasma bolt wasn't the best thing. It's one of the 2 classes that have reroute and making it cheaper when dealing tons of damage is not considered balancing in my opinion. Like I said, people need to understand one build to another in order to balance the game but everyone wants to always remain in power.



One Winged Angel1357 -> RE: Changing items after the fact (8/17/2012 11:55:09)

I really don't think there is anything more to add after what Wonderp said so we are just beating a dead horse now. But to sum it up there are 17 testers and at least 2,000 players so while the testing team can test some of the release it is up to the player base to go through the release with a fine tooth comb. The Dev's need us to find those little ways to break the release that they missed because a bug unchecked can do some serious damage later down the line, or it can be completely harmless but is it really worth the risk?

So will gear be released that the balance team could not find a major issue with? Yes this will always happen because the Balance team cannot think of every build let alone have the time to test every build.



goldslayer1 -> RE: Changing items after the fact (8/17/2012 13:05:25)

@wonderp
bugs/ glitches i understand. however its the balance side of things. and thats where the staff have shown time and time again that they release something, then end up changing it. this is due to lack of testing.

ill give u a prime example of what im talking about, and that is the plasma armor on cyber hunter. it gives up to 11 resistance.
the class was barely slightly underbalance, (could have used maybe an extra offensive skill) but they give it a passive that completely changes the class.

an average build before plasma armor used to get 85%-90%. after plasma armor, me and several friends had builds getting 98% winrates.
the class had virtually no weakness. u could do a tank build, u could a dex build, u could a heal looping build, u could do a str build.
often times (i used a dex tank, basically really high dex, with resistance armor. giving HUGE block chances and high defense) the battles would last 25-30 rounds against someone with the same build. and all other classes barely won unless they gotten lucky.

now all of this could have been avoided if they had tested the balance aspect of it. and by that i mean making actual builds with the class and doing battles finding every little detail of how it affects battles on all kinds of builds vs all other kinds of builds.
i know this takes time, but thats what they have a testing team of 17 members.

but it really amazes me how after a release, its only players who realize the overpoweredness of things in balance and not the testers merely hours after the release, and the testers had basically an entire week to test it. it makes me wonder if the staff should really be rethinking their strategy.

quote:

To answer your question nexus, yes they should test extensively before releases. Why don't they? Time constraints. If they don't release it in enough time, 90% of the forum population gets upset and starts to badmouth them as if they could do better themselves.
perhaps players could do better. but we will never know if they aren't given the chance.

quote:

So will gear be released that the balance team could not find a major issue with? Yes this will always happen because the Balance team cannot think of every build let alone have the time to test every build.

i wouldm't say every build. but the least they could do is test these things against the basic builds we have in ED.
such as str bh, str ch, str bm, str tlm
tank ch/tlm/merc/
caster BM/mage
basicaly the root builds for each class.



Unknown Menace -> RE: Changing items after the fact (8/17/2012 13:23:16)

^

Its always the CH that gets punched in the stomach, every time..
Look i don't mind if they nerf CH's as long as they nerf everything equally.

I mean does the point of nerfing this class really solve all problems? There will always remain a problem if one class is abviously much stronger than all others. Which in this case isn't the CH.
If every class had a fair chance to win from another that would be perfect (50/50). I never considered changing class (again), but if CH's does get alot weaker you can bet that there will be 1 more BM walking around. The problem will never be solved this way.





goldslayer1 -> RE: Changing items after the fact (8/17/2012 13:34:33)

@unknown menace
im not talking about how OP it is right now. they severely nerfed CH energy pool with the last static nerf. (static being the key to builds prior to plasma armor)

im talking when plasma armor first came. not the changes made MONTHS after the plasma armor release.

there was atleast a gap of 4-5 months where CH was the OPed class. then tlm. then CH again after they removed smoke from tlm.

this is what happens when u have too many classes with passive armors, that would be an balanced class without the passive armor.

if they removed plasma armor from CH, and mineral armor from tlm (and returned smokescreen back to tlm), along with not completely overkilling the support stat, then the game would have had better balance. (and merc would be somewhat more balanced being the only class with a passive armor)

dont take it as a shot at Chs.
i mainly use this example because CH was a fine class before plasma armor, then they put plasma armor in and it just changed the entire playing field. i knew from the start when they said they would put plasma armor in (which at the time was gonna be the resistance version of hybrid) that the class would become unbalanced, and i figured this out before the skill was put in (they announced it somewhere).

so it makes me wonder, are they clueless when it comes to balance?
or do they do this on purpose to make people class change? and get revenue that way.
because every time an OP class comes up, u get tons of people switching to it. (and i bet they love that when people switch constantly)
i myself have changed classes about 100-110 times. mainly from boredom, or testing out a class after it had a major change (like cyber hunter)


another thing, this is something that the staff should address, and that is their limitation on what they can do to change balance. how far they are willing to go. alot of people sit here and spends hours each day giving suggesting (i myself use to give suggestions for months, but it was a mute point, wasn't getting nowhere so i stopped) but they dont know if the staff can even do such a thing or want to do it.

for example, lets say i proposed a fix for an issue like the passive armors. to replace those skills with some other that isn't a passive armor. i would like to know their limitation to see if they could do it. because maybe they dont have time, or cant code it, or dont want to go that route. the point im trying to make is, they should tell us what they cant and can do or what they are willing to do to fix something. so that players who spend hours writting suggestions here can make suggestions based on what the staff can do. otherwise its a waste of time to give suggestions if the staff cant do them.



Ranloth -> RE: Changing items after the fact (8/17/2012 14:00:52)

Entire week to test it? Sorry but coding and testing are two separate things. First it has to be coded so you can actually PLAY it and then testers find issues AFTER it was coded. Whole week? That week is mainly used for coding, then testing comes in, goldy.

You mention removing Plasma and Mineral. If you paid attention to balance, you must give them debuff then or passive EP/HP regen because EVERY class has to have: passive EP or HP regen, debuff or passive Armor (2 of them). You mention removing 2 for what? Balance doesn't work in that way since I'm mentioning the basics of it.



goldslayer1 -> RE: Changing items after the fact (8/17/2012 14:22:28)

quote:

Entire week to test it? Sorry but coding and testing are two separate things. First it has to be coded so you can actually PLAY it and then testers find issues AFTER it was coded. Whole week? That week is mainly used for coding, then testing comes in, goldy.

thanks for telling me something i already knew. but did u know big updates take more than a week? those are the ones that have longer testing (like bots, and major skill changes in classes)

obviously in the beginning of delta they didn't code BM/CH/TLM in a week. that took about 6 weeks. and im sure the larger part of it was testing.
i think perhaps what ur trying to get at is they are are rushing their testing.

quote:

You mention removing Plasma and Mineral. If you paid attention to balance, you must give them debuff then or passive EP/HP regen because EVERY class has to have: passive EP or HP regen, debuff or passive Armor (2 of them). You mention removing 2 for what? Balance doesn't work in that way since I'm mentioning the basics of it.

CH already has a passive Ep regain. its static charge. and CH seemed to do fine before plasma armor.
u can replace plasma armor with what it had before, technician.
as for TLM, u can put smokescreen in for mineral.

obviously i know it should be replaced with something else. the point i was trying to make is, those skill should have been replaced.



Ranloth -> RE: Changing items after the fact (8/17/2012 14:34:44)

No passive EP regen is not Static Charge. Passive is Plasma/Mineral/Hybrid Armor, since it works all the time and is always active. SC is not. Does that mean TLMs need a nerf? They have passive Armor, passive EP regen and passive HP regen (Frenzy). To mention all passives: Reroute, Blood Lust, Deadly Aim, Adrenaline, Hybrid/Mineral/Plasma Armors, Shadow Arts. By your definition, since SC is a passive, then so is Assimilate but it's not.

And TLMs are fine. Mineral will stay, and there was a choice for the Team before, Reroute or Smoke leaving, they went for Smoke so it's balanced now. It's a tank class yet Str builds work fairly well. Only Dex fall behind slightly but that's it.



Lycus -> RE: Changing items after the fact (8/17/2012 14:52:58)

Since this is just turning into a big argument, I'm locking this up. Furthermore, all balance discussions are to be kept to the appropriate topic.

As for a 'proper answer' on the topic, I will back up what quite a few of you said. When we test, we have 'x' amount of tester, depending on who is online and available. We could test for hours and hours, but due to the nature of balance, even if there were 100 of us battling, we'd still miss somethings, because we just can't reproduce every single possible battle/build scenario, it's impossible. The only way we have a chance to get a full idea of how it will effect everything is to release it. Now, that doesn't mean that we don't pay attention to balance before we release, because we do literally everything we can, we tend to balance a lot of items, and change stats appropriately. As said though, we can't possibly get everything spot on. Which is why we use your feedback to make changes a lot of you want.

The other factor is the fact that a lot of these things also develop after time and are impossible in every way to predict. For example, if we release a bot on week 1, then 7 weeks later we release some weapons with an effect, those weapons could contain an effect that is effected by that bot, but only in a certain situation, to the point things need changing. This may lead to us changing the bot, not because we made mistakes while testing it, but because with the latest content, it relies on being changed to be fair. Such as the situation with Azreal and Bioborg.

Yes, you buy what you buy, but at the same time, if they prove to be a balance problem, we will change them. Not because we love to annoy you, and to rip away the good things you buy, and replace them with something else. But because if we let all these things build up, balance issues will hit a brand new level - why let it get to that, when we can correct things now? If we let all these things go by, then in the future, huge issues are going on as a result of all this. People will ask 'why didn't you solve it before it became an issue, since you could, and players were pointing it out?', we don't want that, and we can solve it now, which is what we are doing. If you don't like that, then please debate it in the correct place, thank you.



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