It's something that came to my mind several time while playing... What if the devs, instead of trying things out on test server without not enough people to deal with it, would try extreme gameplay changes on the live server for a very limited time ? On a specific announced day (it has to be mentionned on the loading screen way before it happens) we would be part of a big experiment/event. What kind of experiment ? Add or delete a specific part of the gameplay and see the results. For instance, no redeployement for one single prime time for each server. We'd have to use Valks, Gal, Flashes or anything to move between bases. What would the result be ? We sure don't know and it might be a good way to find out. The pace would be slower for sure, but since everyone would be affected by it, it could still be interesting... An other thing could be to double all the resources costs for one prime time. Of course, things that are over 400 would be capped to 750 and continent wouldn't give the 50% reduction. It probably wouldn't be enough time for people to adjust, but you'll see your nanites deplete quickly and think twice about throwing that C4 or pulling that MBT. Many things could be tried, no MAX unit for a night, everybody has to use sidearms (and stalker cloak knife only), all weapons deals half their normal damage (basically doubling the TTK), etc. These kind of event could be looked forward by some people and frowned upon by other, just like any other things in this game, but at least, it would change the pace of the game from time to time and depending on what idea could be tried out, maybe bring some nice changes we wouldn't have expected. What do you guys think ? Am I a lunatic ? Would you like to see these kinds of "event" happen ?
Pretty sure this is why there is a test server in the first place... Some flavour events could be interesting though.
Yeah but test server doesn't have near as much player, that's why I also focused on the "prime time" aspect. Even when devs organize play test on the PTS, they won't have near as much player. And honestly, I think some of those events could be quite fun to experience.
would be funny to see EVERY weapon in the game suddenly do only 0.01% damage of its original value on live servers for a short time
The issue with this is there'd be continuous (potentially large) updates to download which will introduce changes that will last a day, then another update to put things back the way they were (and then ANOTHER update some time in the future to reintroduce the changes if they're approved). This wouldn't just be a nuisance on SOE's end, but also for those of us with bandwidth and data limitations. Some of us just can't deal with updates popping up every other day. If they're large enough, we start up the launcher, see the size of the update and throw our hands in the air: "No more PS2 for this month." It's not a bad idea on paper, because the single biggest issue when trying to make balance changes is finding an effective environment to test them in. It just has flaws in terms of practicality for SOE and for a particular group of users.
I doubt that it's that big of a problem. They can schedule double XP in advance without the need of a hotfix. They could probably trigger some event in the same way if they schedule the patch prior (even if it's three weeks before) to the event. Yeah, my point was more that, in the case of the no redeploy, if it works way better than they expected and that a majority of players actually enjoyed it (which is very unlikely), maybe they could introduce something on the test server for a longer period of time and grow that idea from there. But having a full blown and quite exagerrated effect for 5 hours on live server when the most players are around could give them data they wouldn't have otherwise.
There may be only one or two Infantry weapons that even have enough ammo in their pool to kill one Infantry target without restocking. You'd have to land every single shot for the Gauss SAW on a target without extra defensive options. Note: I'm not factoring in headshots. Just bodyshots within the weapon's best damage-dealing distance.
