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The Meta is dead, long live the Meta.

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Byron Cavendish:
From what I've been reading, it sounds like the original "hand of balance" (in all it's horror) was swapped, for a slightly more bureaucratic and multi-headed "hand of balance". Maybe I'm wrong, but it just seems like a new face of the same old. Is hiring a seasoned and experienced lead game designer to determine the balance really such a terrible, hard-to-implement concept?

BlackenedPies:
The Hand is the most active and vocal member of the Player Council since they control the direction of discussion and what goes through. It used to be Atruejedi, and say what you want but it was highly organized and democratic. Frankly, I loved how focused and efficient it was. I stopped because discussion was constantly off topic and the new Hand said they didn't care about balancing the game and just wanted to change stuff

On a side note, it's curious how simple and apparently unanimously supported tweaks don't make it into testing, like the long overdue slight reload time decrease for the Minotuar, while more divisive changes actually make it into the game after many weeks of discussion and testing

Naoura:
Aye, it offers the most across all three.

The Forum is too slow for some ideas to come about, they get so little attention because of it. The Discord is much more immediate, and discussion can be more rapid there.

The Trello is a grand place to keep it recorded, where everyone is able to see what the council has come up with. For what the council does, they need that level of record. Trello is a good place for it.

In order to raise awareness of everything and to give proper warning, and to give a date for testing the changes. It also gives everyone a voice where it's needed, as everyone can't be on the discord when the discussion takes place, and not everyone knows about the Trello, or even how to work it.

A week is certaily a long time, but it's the best for the widest possible audience.


As for the Hand discussion... I've had my differences with the current one. Ambivalence would be the best description. My opinion on most parts is that they are actively trying to shake up the established meta, trying to reform it and rebuild from the whole. But the issue with that is parts are left on the way side, case and point the Mino.

There was a balancing discussion planned for the Hwacha, reducing AoE, which I somewhat agree with, though we're simply back where we started with Burst and the Hwacha, despite the ammo reduction. That may be a move in the right direction, or it may not. I'm not certain.

The issue with it is that it's not focused on any one point. Just change. There's not schedule, no focused topics, and no planned discussions as far as I can see. On the one hand that allows for a lot more in the way of democratic discussion, on the other hand.. chaotic.

Richard LeMoon:
Once upon a time, there was a bunch of players that played a game, and thought the devs did not listen to them. The devs did, but sometimes made mistakes that made it seem like they did not, and caused the players to raise pitchforks. This caused moral to be low, especially with the very vocal campaigns of a hostile abrasive person that could never be pleased. Moral was low on all sides.

Another person set out with a plan... a very long term plan to mend these relations. Step one was to caution and moderate the abrasive person, crafting his hostilities into a more productive weapon. Easy there. More slowly here. Small steps...

"Let me handle this." while speaking to the abrasive one.
"Let me handle him." while speaking to the devs.

This worked for a time, until a thing happened and the abrasive person was no more. However, the plans set forth had to go on, perhaps more easily now...

/story

So, let's address that point BlackenedPies keeps flaunting as if it is the undeniable truth. Richard (we all know who these two are ambiguously and passive aggressively trying to avoid naming) does not care about balance, and just wants to make changes.

False.

*GASP!*

How can it be so??? Didn't he say once or twice he did not care about balance when suggesting things to test in devapp? Absolutely. I did say it.

GUILTY!

Now, hold on there, buckeroo. You will notice a distinct difference in what I just wrote, and what BlackenedPies wrote. He wrote: "didn't care about balancing the game and just wanted to change stuff" Now, this is not exactly the truth, and is a very misleading 'paraphrasing' of several things I have said. Let's examine those things.

1. didn't care about balancing the game

This was said on multiple occasions when suggesting interesting and fun things to test (by more than just me) along with more serious suggestions, something Mr. Pies was very against. He wanted two completely separate testing... things? One to test 'serious' balance changes, with another to test 'fun' stuff, which he was not in favor of doing at all. However, he seems to have forgotten who fought the hardest for Mobula balance, as well as pushed hard against what became the Minotaur (hint, it was me). It is easy to forget who gave the final stats that are used in the Mobula when you are trying to push an agenda, isn't it? It is easy to discount countless hours staring at spreadsheets, charts, and equations when you are trying to gather pity to your side.

The truth: Balance was not important in making testing fun, and getting people involved in making suggestions. It was called Wild Week because people were encouraged to make outlandish suggestions. People had fun with it. Muse had fun with it. Moral improved across the board. The tone started changing. A long missing sense of trust began to trickle to the surface.

2. just wanted to change stuff

In other terms, this is "Change for change's sake." Do I want to just change things, including things that are already 'balanced'? In a word, yes. This is an important practice that all successful online games have learned. How much has the GOI meta changed in the last few years? Other games shift things around on a monthly, if not weekly basis. It is decried, yes, but necessary. Waiting for that next nerf/buff patch is nearly a ritual. GOI has, well, stagnation.

To combine those two things in the way you have is simply a lie you have told yourself enough times that you actually believe it. The simple fact is that you were the minority in the talks. No, most people did not disagree with the Heatsink ammo reduction. I just went back through 6 months of Discord conversations, and there were roughly the same amount of people on either side in the begining, with a few wavering depending on the suggestions. After you left, and the topic came back up again, most people came down on the side of normalized ammo and damage. Some because they thought it was a good balance change, others just for a change.

Am I the Hand of Balance? No. I guide where I can, but I have not forced anything through (yet... looking at you gun buff) that goes against the grain of the discussion. I facilitate the changes, and there are a lot of them.

Am I the driving force in the changes happening in the game now? Honestly, yes. I poke and prod the Experimental Crew (we changed from Player Counsel due to people thinking we were an aid group) to keep up as much interest as possible. I suggest outlandish things to get conversations going and see what ideas drop out. I gather the thoughts of others on Trello, keep it updated with the latest test stats and give reasons when I can, spend way too many hours looking over numbers, pass stat requests to the devs, ask and prod for more than we should have, help run, or run weekend testing, spend way too much time testing just one last thing, collect feedback through surveys linked ingame, parse the feedback for easy intake by Muse (with original answers linked), and start the cycle over for the next week with hopes of getting everything ready for a monthly balance patch update. WHILE having an 8-10 hour day job and a family.

I have been successful in doing something no one else has done in the 5 years this game has existed, in my free time. The Experimental Crew is a group of awesome people that I enjoy working with. Muse is another group of awesome people I enjoy working with. Together, we have done a damn fine job. We are crafting balance changes, some of them core gameplay. After this next ammo patch, we have our eyes set on bigger fish.


Anyone is free to include the forum in the talk if they wish. Be the forum guru if you want. I am not going to run everything, especially with so little return. Most of the time when I check the forum, there is only 1 active user in the last 15 minutes, and it is me. Discord is far more active AND diverse than this forum.

/rant

Byron, if you would like to get out of the salt circle you have drawn and know what is actually going on instead of reading a few posts here from people that exiled themselves, feel free to join us. If not, then I don't really care what you have to say.

Naoura, we have been focused on nothing be the current ammo patch for over two months with a very specific goal. Get off your high Spire.

Naoura:
@Richard, The above is exactly why I suggested using the filter theory I suggested. Not everyone is going to check the trello, just like not everyone is going to check the forum, or is involved in the Discord. going through 'months of discord conversations' is kind of a part of the reason you have salt and dissention.

While I disagree with you on several points, I do respect the position you have and what you're doing. Not a fan of you, personally, but that's by the by.

As it stands, the filter I suggested might help minimize some of the issues. I'm not saying that you should take more on your plate with that, but that those involved in the discussion need to include all parts. Trello is a great records keeping place, but not everyone has the link or will check it, just like the Forum, and just like the Discord. The discussion isn't centralized and there is no concrete record for others to look at. Going back through those months of conversation wastes a lot of time for everyone involved, so making a quick note of the discussion as it happens, likely on Trello, would be for the best on all parties, honestly.

The Forum is just to hear the wider feedback, for those who either cannot be on the testing crew, such as myself, due to work or family reasons, or else those who aren't a part of the discord discussion, or else weren't present for it at the time. An open planning session isn't very open if it's buried under a thousand messages.

As for the "hand of Balance" issue... On the one hand, you did state that you were trying things for fun. Seeing what could be done, what might work, and what some might enjoy. On the other, the recent ammunition changes do an about-face to that idea, and directly balance out ammunition types. For the worse in some opinions.

Can't have it both ways, as I see it. With such a large change here, I think it's moving away from "Fun" and more towards "Balance". That hwacha proposal we discussed kind of straddles the line on that, and moves towards the balance side of the spectrum. If you're going to keep the position... Honestly, time to start focusing on the Balance half. You've become the, if controversial, voice of the community balancing. As you're trying to prod it along, you're also taking on the blame and responsibilities. Sad, but how it is.

There's only so much you can do, true, and that's part of what you've got to focus on. Which side; Fun or balance? If Fun, then I'd say it gets to be a lot easier for you, just some interesting, playful things, like making the Minotaur a charging weapon, or else a Hwacha mk.2 that's like you suggested ages ago. For Balance.... I'd say move away from Mk.2 and start working towards making everything, or nearly everything, viable.

Can't do both.

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