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1.4.5 New Balance Changes "When Ambush Comes To Shove"

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nanoduckling:
And just because I suspect that those 11 changes are going to be offered as a counter argument let me explain why I'm not counting most of them.

-Gravity changes removed
Gravity was completely broken. It should never have been in the Dev App to begin with, at least not for a balance patch. Why are we testing alpha stuff in a balance patch?

-Hwacha autofire removed
This was not a substantial problem either way, and the problems with the hwacha have not been addressed. Maybe you get this one, because a few folks had some strong reactions.

-Mobula's arc changes scaled back
From insane to still crippling for interesting builds while not addressing the core problem with the meta mob. The changes settled on here should have been the wacky outlandish "lets try as big as we can starting point", not where we settled.

-Spires turning changes scaled back (was much higher)
The fact we are discussing nerfing the Spire in the first place is a problem. How many times is it brought to competitive games outside of lab/paritan/canyon?

-AI should not fire the harpoon
This was a bug, this is not responding to feedback this is us being your beta testers (that's fine, part of patch testing, but it isn't really listening to us). I'm being generous here and assuming this was not intended behaviour because if it was then I hope you aren't expecting brownie points for removing really, really bad ideas.

-Pyra mass increased
We are having to fix the pyra again because the last set of big balance patches broke it. Listening to our feedback a year after we give it doesn't seem like it belongs on this list. The changes made in these patches were too large, and the changes made in this patch are too large.

-Squid front gun arc put back in its proper place
The fact we are discussing buffing a competitive meta ship is a problem.

-Squid rear gun moved slightly
Why are we buffing the squid at all. It is a competitive meta ship.

-Lochnagar went from 65% back its normal 125%
Breaking the meta with a baseball bat instead of a club hammer.

-Hwacha got slower and almost lost range because of this, but was changed.
The range reduction was a bug wasn't it? And the hwacha is still a problem.

-Reduced screen shake
This one I'll give you.

So out of the 11 listed most either aren't balance testing but are in fact major mechanics changes, buffs or nerfs which are not needed and do nothing to address the competitive meta, are addressing over balancing from last time, or are actually bug fixes. We have one, minor (if important) UI modification on this list. Maybe two relevant changes if I give you removing the hwacha autofire since the community didn't like the idea. I hope you can see why some of us don't think this is a productive use of our time.

So maybe I'm being a bit harsh. This consultation was only almost a complete waste of our and your time.

Dev Bubbles:
Just one note on gravity change, the faster fall would have been closer to actual real physics, so it was not broken.  We wanted to see if trying that would allow people to get out of locking and arc faster, but obviously that didn't work. 

With trying the as big as we can in terms of changes as a starting point, we did try to be more careful.  This was because in the past, larger changes were generally perceived very negatively, but it's a fair point. 

With the pyra, if we broke it, it was because it was generally considered significantly overpowered the patch before last, and the data reflected that.  We tried not to make knee-jerk changes and wanted to let data collection last for longer.  Too long?  Perhaps, but I don't think people accept knee-jerk changes now. 

I don't believe there was a range reduction bug with the hwacha.   

Dementio:
I understand that this game doesn't solely focus around balancing toward competitive, but that doesn't mean it should be ignored completely. If you want to buff the Squid and nerf the Spire, because pubs have no idea what they are doing, fine, but don't just ignore what you are doing to the other half of the game, the ones that are actually actively talking to you and playing this game more than once after the sale. If you buff the already good ship and nerf the already bad ship, then for god sake, add some nerfs to the good and buffs to the bad so the other half can still enjoy it.


--- Quote from: Dev Bubbles on March 19, 2016, 12:15:40 pm ---Over each week of testing, we tried out some different ideas.

--- End quote ---

And there are a million things you could have done, but didn't even try. Examples are giving the Pyramidion more speed or not actually buffing the Squid's speed or nerfing the Squid's hull, because it being faster should mean it can dodge more. You haven't tried balancing, instead you stuck with the set of your first ideas and no matter what anybody told you, you tried your best to gear your first set ideas to something that would actually work. Ignoring the fact that your first set of ideas could be flawed or that you could be flat out making the good better and the bad worse.

ZnC:
@Bubbles:
Thanks for giving us your perspective. While far from perfect, I think the balance changes are much better than the previous year and there is definitely improvement. Having put a lot of time and effort into writing feedback, I can understand why some of us feel that our feedback isn't changing anything. This might mostly be due to individual suggestions not being tested as they are, or even seriously considered. We state the problems, highlight core issues, and propose viable solutions which are tailored for them (which, at least for me, were never tested). It can be frustrating when players see changes that are completely different (like out-of-the-world different) than what we propose.

A lot of us are also puzzled by the frequency and magnitude of balance patches. Balance is done by making small tweaks to numbers over short periods of time. From what we see, GOI "balance" patches are big annual gameplay changes that completely shifts the meta like an expansion would. I believe these two are the main reason why people are upset. Thanks for the work however, I know the team has put in quite some effort for this one. I can only hope you guys consider the Rate of Fire reduction idea that I sent in for Lochnagar, just before the patch went live.

Dev Bubbles:
@dementio, I don't think we've ignored competitive at all to be honest, as a lot of feedback, including yours have been taken into account. 

Right now, you have specific issue with squid and spire, and I get that.  In this case, I do agree that we were motivated by stats in vet matches as well as matches that were predominantly played by vets.  We wanted to get a larger sample size over a longer period.  If this has misled us potentially, we are aware, and these 2 items are things we will be monitoring most closely over the coming days. 

As for trying different ideas.  Granted, we have not tried every single variable that's potentially in existence, surely.  As you guys noted in this thread, we have not been stuck on 1 set of ideas either.  With changes, we had to hold some things constant, and I don't think we ignored the fact that our first ideas could be flawed. 

Well in any case, it's not my place to change your opinion or argue.  I do agree that we have rooms for improvement, and we will look specifically at the spire and the squid. 

Thanks for listening, Howard

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