Community Complaint Thread (also something about toxic towers? Or something?)

[BeeKauzh]

@shadowzz

Hi, I just want to point out that players do balance games :

First, why is there a suggestion/change thread and a balance thread if Neco knows how to balance the game and doesn't need to ask the players what needs to be balanced/chaged? Cause players, mainly the "pro" players, probably know what needs to be balanced in this game more than him? Don't you agree?

Second,I play 3 other games outside of ID: Diablo, Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm. Three Blizzard games. In each of them players contribute to balancing the game, for example :

Diablo had a weapon mainly used by Monk players that was judged OP by the community. Blizzard asked a pro Monk player how they should change it;

Hearthstone had some cards judged OP by the community and Blizzard nerfed most of them (Undertaker & Gadgetzan Auctioneer to name a few);

It's the same thing in Heroes of the Storm. Recently Blizzard nerfed Kael'Thas' Flamethrower + Ignite combo 'cause it was judged OP by the players.

Game developers do asks the players how they should balance their game because they indeed know more what needs to be balanced/changed.

Off topic:
It's really hard to take you seriously when alot of what you say is non-sense or a lie. A couple weeks/months ago I asked you to name 1 person other than Foss who uses Ethereal Mirror. You never answered. Lynx asked you here to cite where those 10 ruined games by Split Toxic were and you avoided the question. You said getting 90g or 135g is no big deal and just wait for GP then Boom! Titan ded, game ruined. 90g is a fuckton and hard to get vs an average titan in a pub game. Wait for GP? 'Cause that'll work out well. You only look like an inexperienced player and a liar when saying things like that. OF COURSE people will react like they did.

[ShadowZz]

@Lynx The fact the you directly go to the typical "I'm more mature" speech is disturbing. We wouldn't be talking if we didn't both have functioning brains. If you want an argument/discussion I'm happy to oblige but lets keep the normal insults off the table. We're talking about ID as a whole now. Toxic was like 10 posts ago. Move on. We'll do it some other time.

The entire point of that comment was to not be precise. It was so only you would understand. I don't care if "the rest of the world" knows. I just want you to know that I know. Simple as that.

@BeeKauzh Is this a troll? I can't tell :S

I know games "ask" players what to do sometimes. That doesn't mean that players now can feel like that have the god given right to say what they want and treat everyone like shit because they think their opinion matters more. When realistically it doesn't. Everyone's opinion matters. My point is that average players can give a suggestion just as well as a pro player can. You're missing the point beek :/ Pro players can help mould a game. But that doesn't mean that whatever they say is right.

Go read the start of this thread before you join the hate club. I commented my opinion without flame. Burn and Lynx then flamed me over how they were more experienced blablabla. Don't jump 30 posts into a thread and make a comment if you haven't bothered reading the conversation. It's just lacy and disrespectful to everyone involved. We've all clearly put effort into expressing our opinions. If I can be bothered to read your comment and reply then at least give me the same decency.

You literally just pulled a single line from a month ago from a thread. Ethereal Mirror has been in ID for like 3 years and you seriously think only 1 player uses it. The idea you need examples of that is beyond ludacris to me.

Again if you bothered to give us the respect of reading our posts before commenting then you would have seen that I already answered the "cite" stuff.

Again you ignored previous posts. I don't know how long it will be until "pro" ID players will realise they account for 1% of players. The other 99% are bad or average. Majority of Titans are bad or average. If it's a good titan he will win with an insane w/l%. You want to discuss balance but you can't see that 90g in a average ID game with the current player skill is really nothing at all.

[Neco]

@Burn

There are a variety of issues in the development process that hinder quick updates to fix things such as balance or bugs.

• ENT is shit. Seriously, the only way to update a map is have them manually do it. This can take between a day or even longer, which means there's no way to confidently release versions before thoroughly testing them (because it could literally take out the game for the entire player base for a day or several).
• No way to merge map changes. This is something I'm trying to fix with tooling (but this takes development time away from the map itself, which I don't like but... eh). This means whenever I start on a new feature I have to finish it before I can release the map. This is the reason behind the 0101 delay. This also means that only one person can work on the map at a time...
• Optimization process. The map has a lot of objects in it, mostly abilities, due to it's complexity. This means that optimizers and widgetizers glitch out and break half the time (hooray, I have to make my own optimizer now). This again hinders the whole process as loading the development version of the map to test as it takes 2 minutes to load. And that's just 4.0.0 with my optimizations! 3.0.9d literally took 10 minutes each time to load the development version... If you've ever watched my livestream you'll see half my time is waiting for the map to load.
• Disconnect between balance and features. Yes! That's right, I have a problem with exactly what you've described. In the map everything is tightly coupled (due to Blizzard's process) which doesn't allow for me to just load balance data into a map and have it work... I'm also making my own custom tools to fix this.

So yeah, it's really hard to get a good connection. I know the way its working at the moment isn't ideal but it's all I can do as a one man team. And there is literally no one else who can do it right now...

EDIT: And no, I'm definitely not taking a co-editor / someone to take over after the last three really didn't work out well at all.

[Lynx]

ENT is shit. Seriously, the only way to update a map is have them manually do it. This can take between a day or even longer, which means there's no way to confidently release versions before thoroughly testing them (because it could literally take out the game for the entire player base for a day or several).

lol, I agree. ID is so different from ENT. We should really be separate from them.

Toxic was like 10 posts ago. Move on. We'll do it some other time.

Yet another dodge since you realized you're wrong...

The entire point of that comment was to not be precise. It was so only you would understand. I don't care if "the rest of the world" knows. I just want you to know that I know. Simple as that.

Considering i have no idea what you are talking about and I feel like there is a misconception. Clear it up thx.

I agree with BeeK. 100%.

[Burn]

Just to preface, I agree with basically everything Beekauzh has said, except I have no knowledge about the ethereal mirror part. Anyone with half a brain should notice that he isn't trolling.

You have every right to give your opinion about balance suggestions, just like we have every right to tell you that those opinions aren't worth mentioning, because it's utter crap. This is our constructive criticism for your suggestions. When you try to justify that you have a say, we are saying our say is worth more because we are two hundred million times more experienced than you. We're saying your say is worth nothing, but you are free to vocalise your say, but to save everyone's time and effort of reading your long useless posts, we are recommending you not to post your opinion on balance suggestion, because it doesn't serve any purposes other than de-railing the thread.

For anyone familiar with Reddit; this wouldn't be an issue if we had a reddit type thread where we can just down-vote and move on and your posts will be hidden from sight, because your posts will always be part of the main topic, are super long and tedious to read through (yes, I know, personally I should try to make my posts shorter too) and your ludicrous posts distracts people when they are making sensical arguments about balance.

@Neco The timing of updates is no problem, I'm not saying it is a problem. The only problem is balance. The only problem is that currently and probably future updates will still have the same problem; they will be incredibly unbalanced. I'm not saying someone should edit with you, I'm saying someone should be in charge of balance suggestions. Basically, that person will be the person who says yes/no to each and every number tweak you personally think of. He'll also be in charge of greenlighting number tweaks, which you will then have no say in saying yes/no to, and must code it. You can obviously ask for explanations, or try to convince him otherwise, or discussing about different better alternatives, but in the end, this guy will be the one in charge of all balance suggestions. If he says you must do this and there is no better alternative, you should accept it and code it. This guy will also be the one in charge of priorities for balance suggestions only (you can still make new shit like new titans, Bubonicus was fine, the new wall thing was fine, you don't have to run these things through with the balance guy, he will tell you to balance it later), and will have the say on which things you should be doing first. If the public, or you, personally, think that this guy is doing a bad job of doing the balance suggestions, you can just fire him. He takes no place in coding, you don't have to send him maps to test for alpha, the only interaction is via messaging.

-Burn

[Neco]

@Burn isn't that already what the community is doing? That's what the balance thread is for. I always post a changelog with number changes and everyone is welcome to give feedback. It's not like I delete posts or anything...

[ShadowZz]

Well this clearly went no where. As usual you just ignore everything typed to you and flame inexperience. Too much effort to reply at this point. I don't particularly care about your opinion on me. You already showed your true colors in this thread. Peace.

[BeeKauzh]

@BeeKauzh Is this a troll? I can't tell :S

I know games "ask" players what to do sometimes. That doesn't mean that players now can feel like that have the god given right to say what they want and treat everyone like shit because they think their opinion matters more. When realistically it doesn't. Everyone's opinion matters. My point is that average players can give a suggestion just as well as a pro player can. You're missing the point beek :/ Pro players can help mould a game. But that doesn't mean that whatever they say is right.

Go read the start of this thread before you join the hate club. I commented my opinion without flame. Burn and Lynx then flamed me over how they were more experienced blablabla. Don't jump 30 posts into a thread and make a comment if you haven't bothered reading the conversation. It's just lacy and disrespectful to everyone involved. We've all clearly put effort into expressing our opinions. If I can be bothered to read your comment and reply then at least give me the same decency.

You literally just pulled a single line from a month ago from a thread. Ethereal Mirror has been in ID for like 3 years and you seriously think only 1 player uses it. The idea you need examples of that is beyond ludacris to me.

Again if you bothered to give us the respect of reading our posts before commenting then you would have seen that I already answered the "cite" stuff.

Again you ignored previous posts. I don't know how long it will be until "pro" ID players will realise they account for 1% of players. The other 99% are bad or average. Majority of Titans are bad or average. If it's a good titan he will win with an insane w/l%. You want to discuss balance but you can't see that 90g in a average ID game with the current player skill is really nothing at all.

Hi, idk why you assumed i didnt read previous posts but dont worry i did read everything in this thread before commenting.
No i'm not trolling and yes "pros" opinions matters more than an average players opinion when it comes to balancing the game.
Why does it? Cause the pro knows the game much more than the average player.
Understand it
A new player may think something is broken but in reality the experienced player or pro knows its perfectly fine.

[Burn]

Nope Neco, because you're still in charge of balance suggestions. If the public says they want to buff minion move speed, you still have the authority to say no. Also, you still have the priority of which balance suggestion to fix first. What I'm suggesting is that you don't need to spend the time and effort of these things, and someone else can do it for you so that you can focus on the other stuff.

To make it easier to read, the balance suggestion guy will ONLY have access to balance suggestions, which includes:
1) Listening to the public and greenlighting suggestions.
2) Making his own suggestions and greenlighting for himself/herself.
3) In charge of which balance suggestions should be fixed first.
4) Be in charge of whether to tell Neco to code something balance/number related that he personally disagrees with.
5) Everything to do with terrain balancing.

You will still be in charge of:
1) Everything to do with graphical, like whether or not to add a fountain to make it look nicer, skins, icons, etc.
2) Any new things you decide to implement, like adding a new titan. e.g. Bubonicus is an extremely well-made titan, he just needs some number tweaking, which the balance guy will have to fix in alpha testing.
3) Everything to do with coding
4) Bug fixes, glitches, etc.

So you still have most of the work, the balance suggestion guy is only there to support a minor detail that I think the ID community desperately needs atm.

-Burn

[BeeKauzh]

@shadowzz

I'll make it easier to understand:

A player with little game experience who has seen little about the game thinks Demo need a buff
A player with some more game experience and has seen more stuff happen thinks Demo is ok
A player with alot of experience or a "pro" who has seen close to or everything that can possibly happen in a game thinks Demo is OP and needs a nerf

You are telling us that everyone's opinions matters equally.
This is pure non-sense. Just think about it.

I agree that someone should not treat others like shit cause of it but his opinion matters more.
It is also very insulting to say I didn't read previous posts when you don't know if I did.

ps: you make me say Wtf every post you make

[Sat]

I was really disappointed when I found out this was not a thread for complaining about the community, but now it seems to be going that way !

thx for fix

[Neco]

@BeeKauzh actually, there are cases where pro players are not the ones to listen to. Such as when they have their nostalgia goggles on (ermagerd mah hotkeys), or make suggestions that improve only their style of play.

The input that game devs take in from their community has to take these factors into account and it's not just a clear cut case of "a pro player is always right".

[Burn]

That's true, you have to find an experienced player who is unbiased and see the bigger picture. From all the people I've ever talked to about ID balancing, I think Yokola98 was the best at this. I've never talked much about balance with Smygarn777, but just from the edited version of 3.0.6e he released, I found around 80% to 90% of the changes I agreed with.

-Burn

[BeeKauzh]

@neco
I believe I stated objective facts. I said a pro player's opinion matters more because it should be right and a not so experienced player is probably not. I didn't know some people don't give objective opinions when talking about balance. Of course I'm talking about players giving objective opinions.

What does hotkeys have to do with balance?
They were shit before and shit now?

[Neco]

@BeeKauzh of course, I never said you were wrong just that it's not always as clear cut as you "objectively" point out. Professional players play with a certain style and don't always see the entire picture, no matter how much they've played the game.

What does hotkeys have to do with balance?

It was an example of how someone's nostalgia can effect their opinion on things, objectively or not.