This game is only a couple of weeks old. Most players don't even have enough certs in their chosen class to have everything they want much less to have all the things they need. Of course vehicles are powerful atm. Most people haven't dumped precious, and ridiculously hard to obtain, cert points into the things which counter vehicles yet. I rarely see AA maxes... not because people don't want them, but because two bursters are ridiculously expensive, and there's not a lot of people who started playing this game with "Hey, I really want to be a dual burster, AA MAX!". Nope. Not hardly. Instead, work on optimization. Make sure that we don't see people warping around constantly. Work on an anti cheating program that catches the cheaters, hopefully, before they can even be reported. Work on adding more land mass. Work on a lattice system, or a lockout system of some kind so we aren't playing whack a mole all day. But please, whatever else you do, don't start swinging the "balance" pendulum before a large portion of players have at least 4-6K worth of cert points and know how to play the game. I don't mean "how the play the game" as in the skill to aim and shoot, I mean as in how to coordinate the assets that already exist in order to win. Most of the players whining and complaining that air assets or tanks are ruining the game, haven't even finished certing out their first class, much less bothered to pick up an AA asset or certing into a fighter with AA pods. If we start buffing AA right this very minute, then six months from now you won't be able to launch an aircraft without getting insta gibbed because everyone and their mother now has free cert points to put into AA. Give the game some time. Let it mature a little. Quit letting the Veruca Salt crowd screaming "I waaaan't it noooow SOE!" determine what you need to do next.
Why can't they do both things at the same time? Of course this game needs tons of optimization, but also some balancing is needed. It will never be perfect, but it can definitely be better.
Having been with ps2 since end of tech test I can tell you that increasing AA range slightly will not kill the game. It is being counter balanced by removing dumbfire mode, which will put more tanks on the field and make them more menacing. The decimator addon is going to be delightful, and its about time the Walker gets a bit more juice. Game balancing in beta were drastic changes that made a lot fo people unhappy, but were a necessary part of game tweaking. After beta the changes can only be slight. Optimizing the metagame and gameplay works like a funnel. I can add that I've spent north of 50$ on the game already and am a bit ashamed of how much I splurged. These buffs will not take anything away from my gameplay. They will add to it. I am a liberator pilot, and my outfit is an air cav (LUA). Big changes to small tweaks. Welcome to the tweaks.
There is room for some balance. Like making the TR Emperor Pistol not useless. But they are definitely changing a lot of stuff that didn't need it in the patch.
I disagree because the devs have stat collection tools that they have demonstrated before. With these tools they can measure the effectiveness of all kinds of things and use that information to balance them rather than listening to the vocal minority on the forum. I think part of the reason PS1 had many balance issues, especially with the Lasher, is because they didn't have any code that measured various things like accuracy, deaths to a certain type of weapon, etc. Don't assume that because devs are changing things that it is because people are whining.
VANU OP AIR IS OP NC are doing just fine TR are getting the damage buff for their HEAVY TANK Lightnings either need to deal more damage or have more armor by default...they are glass in tank form.
You're in for a serious shock if you think online game design works this way. You know what changes they make? Pick something you love to do in this game, the whole reason you log on for, now understand that it will no longer be possible to do in this game sometime in the future. It could be tomorrow, it could be five years from now, and there will never be a good reason for it being changed. Do you know why? Because of ego. The same reason any call for them to stop balancing will never be heard. You are in their world now.
I really see no reason why they shouldn't work on balance issues that have existed since the beta. Since you specifically mention AA I'd like to point out that the stats for all the air and AA gear have not changed much since said beta and back then pretty much everyone had any and all AA measures they wanted and the forums had the exact same number of complaints.
Balance needs to happen ... To take the current situation as an example .. AA was to powerful during Beta and was rightly toned down ... but it was nerfed TO much, so now it needs to be re-addressed slightly ... Hence balance. No one want's their favourite toy broken, but sometimes for the greater good it needs to happen
Optimisation needs to be worked on first, but i will have to say that there are some problems such as ballancing but releasing the same weapon with upgrades for $tation Ca$h is not working.
For those that don't understand how game development works: there are different departments of people working on a game. Programmers work on optimization and bug fixes. Programmers do not balance the game. Designers balance the game. Designers are not programmers. So... asking the devs to "focus on optimization first" is silly. There are teams of people working separately on each area, so working on one does not sacrifice the other.
As an MCITP for server 2008 IRL, I work on several hundred servers and several thousand clients all across the world for the NSA. I know very well that there are teams of people working on different tasks. You're providing a technical point and not bothering to look at the big picture I presented. I'm simply asking the devs to not swing the balance pendulum back and forth before the game is even a month old. Lets wait and see if vehicles are really that unbalanced after people have their primary weapon certed and are working on anti vehicle certs. If we balance too far at this point, then we'll have to unbalance again down the road. Right now it's just a big cert grab. People are trying to get their character where they want it to be in a primary aspect and then flesh it out. That will take at least four weeks for an unsubbed person who only plays a couple hours a night. At least. So lets give the game that long.
Hey SOE, if OP gets his way and you don't do any more adjusting than the OP is totally OP and should be nerfed.
