Just had an illumination about SOE's self-made Problem

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Jawarisin, Sep 28, 2014.

  1. Jawarisin

    So I was thinking, why is it that SOE keeps making 5-10 stupid decisions or thing wrong for every thing they do correctly. And then it hit me!

    There's two categories of players. Let's say Hardcore and Casuals. Now here's what hit me.

    Casual players look up to Hardcore players and think they've got something they don't which is the reason why they are so good and then they demand a change -> SOE decides to do a change about it because a lot of casual complained.

    Now here's the fundamental problem with this: Casual players don't know what they are talking about.
    I don't mean to be rude, but someone playing 2-3 hours a week compared to someone playing 5-15 hours a day is nowhere near as knowledgeable/able to judge what should be changed. It's like a 4 years old kid, they don't know what's good for them/everybody else. But SOE listens.

    And so, I just had this illumination of why did SOE do stupid/bad decisions after stupid/bad decisions. They listen to people who don't know what they are talking about.


    Just sharing this illumination/hypothesis with you guys.
    • Up x 1
  2. Exonis

    You are now philosophy.
    • Up x 6
  3. Xasapis

    It's not as simple as that. The balancing act here is to make a game that is fun both for the crowd that has maybe an hour per day to play and those that have multiple. Both crowds know what they want, and that's spending some fun time in the game. But the goals and aspirations are different. While the casual crowd may be aiming for trading deaths for kills, or helping their side push a base, the more hardcore (in terms of time spent) crowd may be looking for cert gain or big killstreaks.

    Both crowds know what they want. Both are necessary for the health of the game. In the end it is a balancing act, since you can't have one crowd completely satisfied, without alienating the other.
    • Up x 3
  4. phreec

    You're saying that as if only casuals want change, which isn't true at all.
    • Up x 1
  5. Jawarisin


    Hardcore gamers have always been asking the same thing, since gaming started. Somewhere skill matters.
    As Nolan Bushnell said: "Easy to learn, Hard to master". That sentence even became Blizzard (makers of diablo, starcraft, warcraft etc) Motto. It should be easy to learn so that new players can get right into it. But it should be hard to master, to let players evolve constantly and have fun.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushnell's_Law

    To give you an exemple, if we flip a coin, it's extremely easy to pick up on the game. But there's no challenge/depth to it, and it gets boring quickly. But if I ask you to do something impossibly hard, you might just give it up and go for something that's easier to start with.

    Most hardcore gamers just want to have room for improvement. As far as I am concerned, I pretty much hit the ceiling. I won't ever perform any better on infantry without a new computer, and even then, it won't be a personnal improvement, just my material. The game is slowly starting to loose interest to me, I already decided I wouldn't put any more money into it. The only thing I can improve at is what I'm currently doing, cqc sniping (SAS-R and such). I could improve my air game, but I'm already a good pilot. I can measure up to Prey, CoOp, zaps and others in the air on a 1v1. I still get owned by a few players, of course, I'm far from being the best pilot. But the A2A kind of ruins that partly.

    Sure, Hardcore wish to repair.
    • Up x 2
  6. Xasapis

    Easy to learn. Hard to master. Join Vanu ;)
    • Up x 1
  7. Alarox

    I don't think there's a single item in your arsenal that fits that description better than the other factions.
    • Up x 8
  8. Tuco

    I had a theory once
    • Up x 1
  9. _itg


    That's great and all, but what changes are casuals calling for that remove skill from the game, and what has SOE actually done to remove skill from the game? Are you talking about the resource revamp? I mean, *maybe* you could argue vehicles require less skill now, because you can more easily pull another when you die, but I'd argue that change was still a net gain because it removed the steamroll effect of totally depriving the losing faction of the resources necessary to fight back. Are you talking about the splash damage nerf? Because that actually increases the skill floor for those weapons.
    • Up x 1
  10. Jawarisin


    Tomcats(and coyotes) for instance. Those ruined the air game. Shotguns also have the same effect, yes they are not effective at range, but they are completely overpowered anywhere else for someone who knows how to use them. I don't know myself enough tank-wise to make a statement.

    Of course, shotguns are shotguns and I don't mind them. They don't ruin the ground fights, as there is sometime open terrain and all kind of other things going on. But for instance, the Tomcats COMPLETELY ruined the air game.
  11. phreec

    Higher skillfloor. Higher skillceiling. Join NC.
    • Up x 2
  12. JonboyX

    The game was built with the casual player in mind; that's their business model. You can scale to average players far better than elite players. And the fact that some players have gotten very good is irrelevant really: make a game big enough, with easy logistics, and you can scale those players out of the larger equation.
    • Up x 1
  13. Xasapis

    I would, for the SAW. And the cardboard camo, when it's out ;)
  14. Goretzu


    If someone is playing 15 hours of PS2 a day they are not a hardcore gamer, they are just playing a ridiculous amount of PS2, most importantly anyone playing 15 hours of PS2 a day should NOT be listened to ever (about anything)! :D

    Even if they tell you the sky is blue I'd have a look myself, as anyone playing that much cannot have a reliable or balance opinion of.... well.... anything.



    The game is generally more balanced and better than it ever has been, even the stuff I've been very concerned about (implants) have turned out pretty ok.

    Certainly they've made mistakes, but that is MMOs for you, that will never change, not today, not tomorrow and not in 100 years time.
  15. Dudeman325420

    Here's something to think about... Maybe people who play games for a few hours a day as a hobby are nowhere near as knowledgeable as the people who code, draw, design, and create them as their professional career for decades. SOE has never taken player feedback (no matter what demographic) any more seriously than you would at your job when a customer yells at you for doing it wrong. They pay attention to us to see if any glaring problems manage to slip by them, but player feedback doesn't really have that much impact on balance changes overall in PS2, or any other SOE MMO I've ever played.
  16. Moz

    Fixed!
    ;-)
  17. Yeahy

    Lasher?
  18. Yeahy

    It was awful.
  19. Jawarisin


    15 hour's a bit rough haha. I'd do that during a weekend maybe, Otherwise no time :(
    Problem is they've made a LOT of mistakes, and I think I found the reason why. You read my theory at least. In other words, if a specialist on the sky, that also was an expert meteorologist said: "The sky is blue". There's more credibility than if someone that barely read an article once a few months ago that says "The sky is blue".
    This is pretty obvious, but you get the concept, I'm sure.


    Oh it does. Over the time I've played, I've seen the power of QQ threads.
    QQ air is too hard to get into. Here's tomcats.
    QQ infiltrators are too op: Here, invinsibility's now a joke on anything higher than low.
    QQ snipers and nanoweave: Here's a revamp (that was a good one!)
    QQ tanks and c4, so much farm farm - Let's change tank velocity and their speed.
    QQ my mbt dies much because no AA to protect it - Let's drastically reduce the lib ammo capactity.
    QQ tank mines too hard to see - Let's make them bigger
    QQ proxy mines too strong - Let's make them disco balls (possibly a good change)
    QQ most underused thing in the whole game NAC is annoying - Nerfs it to uselessness.
    AAAAAAAnd the list goes on. Some of those changes were for the better, but some of them were simply to accommodate crying. SOE try to make the experience easier by lowering the skill ceiling. But the funny thing is there was a solution suggested for a while now that was never taken into consideration... Mentor system. A LOT of players offered themselves etc. They even started something on the planetside universe forum, but I don't know what happened with it in the end.

    Have you ever worked or tried helping at all someone with their computer? Usually they don't have a single clue what they are talking about, nor what you are doing. Same thing here, most of the customers have no clue.
    Never under-estimate QQ threads.