Forums » General
Ship balancing, angst and irritation.
Hi everyone. I'm just posting this quickly to respond to a couple of concerns. 1) I'm hoping to do a balance update tonight, I don't know exactly when. 2) I hope people will give the changes a chance, and tell me what they like, what they don't like, and do it constructively.
For everyone who says I "nerfed" the prom and never fixed it.. the same can be said of every other heavy, which has not yet been addressed. I do not have a vendetta (har har!) against the Serco, the Prom, or any other particular group or subgroup in the game. Unfortunately, as has been discussed in length elsewhere, the real intended use for the prom hasn't fully come into its own yet, and won't really be there until the game expands a little more. It's a heavy attack vessel with nothing to attack, but we're working to address that too.
For everyone who utterly hates the changes to the mining maud, it was becoming too ubiquitously a used ship. Good fighter, great trader, great miner, great everything.. and was a bit over the top. I made some changes to see how they'd work out, and I'll be putting some more into production this evening. It's really easy to make a ship that's great at everything, but then what's the point of having different ships at all? We've always tried to make an interesting array of equipment available that you (the players) could configure in different ways and come up with different uses for it. Ships aren't supposed to absolutely fit into roles, but there should be pros and cons to all.. not just pros. Acquisition time is a factor too, I understand.. and it sucks that right now all we have to give out are ships and weapons that we can't make so worthwhile that they utterly unhinge the whole game. Which means some of the "rewards" you get for a given faction increase, or mission sequence, or other Accomplishment.. are really not up to par with the time and sweat that you've spent to get there. Part of our meeting this past Monday was devoted to discussing that problem.
Also:
The best way to get things changed is not to scream and rant and say that everyone is going to leave (Although that may be true). The best way is just to make your point in the Suggestions forum (or here when I ask for input). I ask because I *want* the input, I make these changes and put them in when I'm uncertain because basically I need feedback in order to further refine them. If we had a Test server, yes, I would put the changes in there.. but even that doesn't give you the feedback that a larger userbase can. So problems would still surface, regardless. I do wish we were Blizzard, and could have done a year of testing with a practically "finished" game to get all this out of the way before we started charging. Unfortunately, we aren't, and this is the situation we're left with, which I'm trying to make the best of.
Fundamentally speaking, you guys need to understand.. we launched flat broke (actually, in debt) in November. The *only* reason we are here at all is because of you and your support. The last thing I want to do is make you all unhappy and hateful of this game. But, at the same time, I have to do my best to try and improve it, because it is rather flawed.. while also trying to keep up with everything else going on and the 458393 different roles I play (and we all play) in our tiny company. Wearing 27 hats leads to some things (like ship balance completion) not happening as quickly as I would like. Life would be a lot simpler if I were just the Ship Balance Guy.. or hell, the Game Balance Guy. Anyway..
All I can really ask for is patience. We're doing what we can, we're trying to make this game something that will really knock all your socks off. Part of the problem here is a lack of communication between you guys and us (we communicate, but you don't entirely know where we're headed beyond sporadic In Progress updates).. I'm trying to work on improving this as well, most likely in early February, with the full exposure of our new long-term schedule and design.. so you'll be able to see what's coming, why, and debate and give feedback in advance of implementation. I think this'll be cool.. and I've been meaning to write an In Progress post about that (heh), but this now entirely-too-lengthy post will have to do for the moment.
So, to conclude, thank you all for supporting us and letting us keep working on this game at all. We very nearly weren't here, and we're really happy to have this opportunity to make VO the game that (I think/hope) we all want it to be. It will not happen immediately, and there will be growing pains, but we're getting there.
Ok, now I have to get back to real work, so this update gets done :).
For everyone who says I "nerfed" the prom and never fixed it.. the same can be said of every other heavy, which has not yet been addressed. I do not have a vendetta (har har!) against the Serco, the Prom, or any other particular group or subgroup in the game. Unfortunately, as has been discussed in length elsewhere, the real intended use for the prom hasn't fully come into its own yet, and won't really be there until the game expands a little more. It's a heavy attack vessel with nothing to attack, but we're working to address that too.
For everyone who utterly hates the changes to the mining maud, it was becoming too ubiquitously a used ship. Good fighter, great trader, great miner, great everything.. and was a bit over the top. I made some changes to see how they'd work out, and I'll be putting some more into production this evening. It's really easy to make a ship that's great at everything, but then what's the point of having different ships at all? We've always tried to make an interesting array of equipment available that you (the players) could configure in different ways and come up with different uses for it. Ships aren't supposed to absolutely fit into roles, but there should be pros and cons to all.. not just pros. Acquisition time is a factor too, I understand.. and it sucks that right now all we have to give out are ships and weapons that we can't make so worthwhile that they utterly unhinge the whole game. Which means some of the "rewards" you get for a given faction increase, or mission sequence, or other Accomplishment.. are really not up to par with the time and sweat that you've spent to get there. Part of our meeting this past Monday was devoted to discussing that problem.
Also:
The best way to get things changed is not to scream and rant and say that everyone is going to leave (Although that may be true). The best way is just to make your point in the Suggestions forum (or here when I ask for input). I ask because I *want* the input, I make these changes and put them in when I'm uncertain because basically I need feedback in order to further refine them. If we had a Test server, yes, I would put the changes in there.. but even that doesn't give you the feedback that a larger userbase can. So problems would still surface, regardless. I do wish we were Blizzard, and could have done a year of testing with a practically "finished" game to get all this out of the way before we started charging. Unfortunately, we aren't, and this is the situation we're left with, which I'm trying to make the best of.
Fundamentally speaking, you guys need to understand.. we launched flat broke (actually, in debt) in November. The *only* reason we are here at all is because of you and your support. The last thing I want to do is make you all unhappy and hateful of this game. But, at the same time, I have to do my best to try and improve it, because it is rather flawed.. while also trying to keep up with everything else going on and the 458393 different roles I play (and we all play) in our tiny company. Wearing 27 hats leads to some things (like ship balance completion) not happening as quickly as I would like. Life would be a lot simpler if I were just the Ship Balance Guy.. or hell, the Game Balance Guy. Anyway..
All I can really ask for is patience. We're doing what we can, we're trying to make this game something that will really knock all your socks off. Part of the problem here is a lack of communication between you guys and us (we communicate, but you don't entirely know where we're headed beyond sporadic In Progress updates).. I'm trying to work on improving this as well, most likely in early February, with the full exposure of our new long-term schedule and design.. so you'll be able to see what's coming, why, and debate and give feedback in advance of implementation. I think this'll be cool.. and I've been meaning to write an In Progress post about that (heh), but this now entirely-too-lengthy post will have to do for the moment.
So, to conclude, thank you all for supporting us and letting us keep working on this game at all. We very nearly weren't here, and we're really happy to have this opportunity to make VO the game that (I think/hope) we all want it to be. It will not happen immediately, and there will be growing pains, but we're getting there.
Ok, now I have to get back to real work, so this update gets done :).
Three cheers for John Bergman!
Hip hip!
Hip hip!
Hip!
I think the proper term is 'Hooray!'
:D
amen
/\ What he said. :-)
Hats off to the devs. Just as long as they don't nerf the Prom any _more_, that is. ;P
-:sigma.SB
-:sigma.SB
It's no longer tonight.
Pssst...devs...Did you know you accidentally made credits worth 50 times more in the last update?
/me slips the devs a bag of 100k credits
You know, these credits don't really like how serco have high levels...maybe you should, you know, change their character stats...
Stupidity aside (yes I've made that joke at least four times now. Yes I'm going to keep making it :P) thanks for this update Incarnate, and I'm eagerly looking forward to the February In Progress Update.
/me slips the devs a bag of 100k credits
You know, these credits don't really like how serco have high levels...maybe you should, you know, change their character stats...
Stupidity aside (yes I've made that joke at least four times now. Yes I'm going to keep making it :P) thanks for this update Incarnate, and I'm eagerly looking forward to the February In Progress Update.
incarnate ! you touched my heart with this post. Warm thank you
good words, I'll be happy to test some more ships yet again. from the point of view of someone who has played a month, I really like your work! and don't wear yourselves out!