Producer's Letter

Discussion in 'Official News and Announcements' started by d_carey, Jul 25, 2014.

  1. Jeslis


    The twitter tracker (https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?recent-activity/)
    Only shows Higby.
    Awhile back there used to be a dropdown there that let me flip between multiple SOE employees.
    Can we get that back and working?

    eg; Your SOE tracker thing should show everything that you guys are posting, game related, on 1 page... ((Which is why I hate reddit with a passion unrivaling anything other.. because finding anything in that mess is impossible.
  2. Jeslis


    And.. random question.

    Regularly a bunch of the Free-to-play games (Rift?.. Warframe.. a few others).. when they come out with updates, they show up on the steam (store) front page again.
    I haven't seen planetside on the steam (store) frontpage in ages... is it expensive to have it placed there? .. Can we get it there again for future major updates.. it would help with new-player inflow right?
    • Up x 1
  3. AirSuicide

    So this guy replaced Higby? Maybe he can motivate the Dev team to produce more then 1 thing content wise every 2 years.... Or managed to get rid of the common pool crap and make everything faction skinned (especially vehicles). I mean lets face it, common pool stuff is an easy way to get things in game fast sure... but your just ruining the game since everyone is running around with the same crap.

    My Vanu Galaxy should not look like a C135A Galaxy. My vanu Sunderer, should not look like an Armored personnel carrier or Duce and a half from the US Army.....

    Etc.

    You've got a lot of work ahead of you to win people over, Destiny releases in less the 3 months. If you don;t have the game together by then, expect a mass exodus.

    Oh and uh, welcome. And no offense with the above, but pretty words has never convinced me of anything. I want to see action. And looking at the recent updates and whats on the "unscheduled" features. I'm going to say.... Not seeing any yet.

    Actions always speak louder then words. Talking is great, and interaction with the player base is awesome, But fixing the game, and getting it where it needs to be at a decent progressive rate, is better.
    • Up x 1
  4. Scataloni

    [QUOTENice sig ;)

    So bear in mind - nothing we implement is ever irrevocably final. If something does go live that really harms the game, it'll be be removed/adjusted][/QUOTE]

    Will you be making any changes to cont locking?

    When I login I go right to the map and usually log right out because I don't like fighting on Amerish or Hossin.
  5. Lilium Atratum

    Have you seen how Roberts Space Industries (guys behind Star Citizen) are approachable?
    You can basically talk to almost any lead developer of any particular aspect of the game in their "Ask the Developer!" section. While naturally it is heavily moderated, it is a great place for questions and you do get answers there.
    Another aspect that I like a lot is that a lot of communication is based on their own forums, rather than being scattered through different social media. Being on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, God-knows-what-else is not necessairly a good indicator.
    And finally, their Transmissions about what they are currently working on, the detail description of the problems they are fighting with - it's beyond anything I have seen. For example this one:
    https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14011-Arena-Commander-Patch-Update

    Sorry, but in my eyes, in terms of approachability and communication with players, RSI beats SOE (at least at the moment).
    I will definitely welcome any change and this sole thread is a good step forward! :)
    • Up x 1
  6. Atrus2g

    Well RSI is a cash flush kickstarter with no fiduciary obligations to its shareholders. Im sure a lot of SOE folks would love to have that kind of freedom but its an entirely different ballgame lol. David good luck, we're behond you!
  7. Lilium Atratum

    True. Those two companies are very different. Not everything that is there can be applied here and vice versa.
    But from all gaming companies I experienced, SOE is not the "most approachable company" and that is just an example why I say so.

    If you start crossing other companies out because of different conditions then... well... you end up having few options to choose from in the first place and the term "most" loses its weight.

    Secondly, the reason I bring it up is in hope that SOE communication could improve by just taking RSI as an example of what is possible.
  8. Dest

    I'm fine with using twitter or reddit as long as the data is duplicated in the forums, especially for downtime and stuff like that.
  9. qquqq

    why do people use redit when there is an official forum? and why do the devs use outside forums? i was just reading a post some one made in the bug report forum saying to post it on redit if you want it seen,,,,?
  10. Scr1nRusher

    You are doing great D Carey!
  11. Dilys

    Welcome Mr, Carey,

    After reading this whole thread, I decided to put my 2 cents worth in. I admit I am bad about coming to the forums on a regular basis. I usually would rather play, and since my playtime is often interrupted, I get what I can. However, I do rely on the forums for information, for the answer to questions and for advice about the game. People on the forums are often willing to explain very simple things to people like me who often end up confused by changes or just the overwhelming number of choices available for everything from weapons to cert points.

    I will admit I am an older gamer, who does not even know what Reddit is, and who thinks Twitter, with its character limit is making the world more and more shortsighted and into immediate gratification. It's ruining news by reporting things that have no basis in fact, it's not true communication, not even good conversation. The forums seem to encourage a more thoughtful approach, with time for people to consider their responses and time for the people looking for answers to figure out what is helpful. I can't see what advantage these off-site communication forms have over your forums. If you are not happy with the forums, make them something you can be happy with. People who play games like . . . playing games. They want information they can readily access on a regular basis and want to be kept informed about changes. I don't want to have to figure out Reddit or use the dreadful Twitter just to get information and announcements that should be made available by your company on your company's own forums.

    I know I am in the minority in your whole game playing universe, as an over 60 player, but I have paid to have an SOE account since Everquest. I have played most of the SOE games at one time or another. I played PS1 and loved it and was very excited about PS2 and have played since beta. I think PS2 is a decent game, even when you only play occasionally. I like a lot of the recent changes. I wish, as someone else mentioned in their post, there were more options for us "old and slow" players, the ones who are not so good at shooting, more sneaking around, better environments for snipers and better weapons for them, more help for engineers, such as a way to keep track of how many of your mines are still out, but I know you have more important things to do than accommodate so few players.

    If you start communicating mostly through means we are not familiar with and in a manner that does not give us the opportunity to be part of the conversation, being too fast and too confusing and not even something we signed up for when we signed on this game, you effectively shut us out. We expected the forums to be the way you talk to us and we talk to you.

    It sounds to me like you have worked on this game for awhile and that you care about it. I can only hope you care about all your players, not just the young and the quick <grin>.
    • Up x 2
  12. Govedo13

    First thank you for the nice honest post.
    I understand your not so good situation- you lost around 30-40% of the PS2 playerbase since the beginning of the year. The good thing is that this fact acts like wake-up call and you are actively seeking changes.

    I do have 2 main issues with the game:

    Issue 1:
    FPS or Combined arms?
    PS2 have identity crisis, some "wise" head in your marketing told you that FPS games have huge auditory so if you go more FPS more players would join the game, more revenue would be made etc.
    Dev team started to nerf combat arms progressively dumping down the game with stupid stuff like allowing spawning at every sunderer, adding more galaxy terminals and allowing lightnings to be spawned at every base. Yet none of those moves helped to attract new players instead you lost some of the existing playerbase.

    The three main reasons why this game would never be interesting for serious FPS players are quite simple:

    1. The Scale FPS players cannot be cooperative in larger scale games because even the best infantryman would loose versus 4 enemy infantry man. The huge scale of the game throws off most of the FPS players playing other games because they cannot play Rambo style.

    2. Randomness- FPS players care about their stats - so when they get randomly 1 shot from anything (RL, Bulldog, Dalton, Tank Cannon etc etc) lets say bulldog out of the air you got angry mob pointing fingers at Bulldogs as OP.
    SOE listens and process nerfing those things, still SOE cannot nerf everything because it is getting silly when infantryman cannot die from tank shell or other type of explosive.
    The said vehicles and weapons are in the game because the game is not FPS but combined arms game, it is logical that infantry dies a lot from vehicles.
    Your best shot here is not to remove that but to reduce the XP given by half- each infantry kill by vehicle should give 50 XP not 100 so "infantry farming" wont be so interesting and vehicle users would focus on vehicles. Do the same with infantry- reduce the XP by killing vehicles as infantry by 1/3 so no more kamikaze runs with tank mines and c4 vs every vehicle that they see while claiming that vehicle users "farm" them. Change the anti-infantry guns by reducing their anti-vehicle effectiveness or remove their anti-vehicle damage at all.

    If you listen to FPS players you better copy CoD and BF and lose the unique niche market of combat arms together with 80% of the playerbase that is here not for FPS but for combined arms.

    3. Client side hit detection. None sane serious FPS player would stick around in game where he dies randomly because he shot half magazine in someones head from behind and that somone turned and killed him.


    Issue 2:
    Balancing:
    First after you fix your identity crisis and decide if the game should be combined arms or FPS then you can balance it according to your decision.
    I am sorry to say that but a lot of the balance passes done by your dev team either overbuff something or overnerf it.
    You cannot expect that someone that bought for example Harasser guns with SC and invested a lot in his harasser would ever buy anything again from you after you overnerfed the harasser. Same applies to Liberator.
    You added unwanted and not needed armour resistance overpowering it then nerfed it to the ground. I can point 10 or more examples of huge balance flaws but this is not the main topic.

    90% of what your balancing team is suggesting and putting on the PTS is plain silly and bad.
    Your balance devs need to play the game more it would save you ton of wasted efforts in silly balance changes that makes the community to grab their pitchforks and go against the Dev team. Balance cannot be made only by hard statistic data.
    You must really work more with community on this one and change things only after they are properly discussed.
    You gain or loose a lot of money and thrust depending on balance. Does not shoot yourself in the foot, the only way to have balanced game and happy customers is to listen to those.
    • Up x 1
  13. omegaflarex

    Higby has been forcibly removed? REJOICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  14. AirSuicide

    If you want an approachable company go with CCP. Or ZoS (Zennimax Online). Who actually do developer interviews with the community every week, and answer questions about the game and upcoming content.

    SOE has NO approach-ability in my eyes in any area in any of their games.

    When a player asks a question on these forums 99.9% of the time all they get as an answer is.. crickets. And while crickets are cool and all, a Mod going.. We can't answer that at this point in time" (Or actually providing an answer of some-sort) would be considered approachable.

    However SOE's method of just simply ignoring the thread, and the player, which is what they currently do, is the exact opposite.

    Take the Roadmap threads for example, beyond the Devs first post they are not even remotely active or responding a single time to anyone. In key threads where interaction should be at maximum "Were approachable and you can talk to us" and then they don;t even bother to try and communicate, just "seemingly" ignore the entire thread and all the comments.... Well..... That would be lieing wouldn't it?, Which lets face it, "is" what SOE is good at, and what they have done best over the years. (You know besides making really cool titles then screw them up completely to the point of unplayability or just out and out ruining the game).
  15. AirSuicide

    Also as I have stated before.... You all really need to stop being lazy and adding more and more common pool stuff. No one wants to play a game with 3 entirely different factions who Drive and shoot the exact same "looking" vehicles and guns.

    This by itself is going to kill your game. But go ahead, continue adding them and continue watching players leave your game. You need to go back and re skin ALL of the common pool weapons and vehicles. And get rid of the NS line entirely. (Or change the names and faction skin them.

    Is this more work for you all?... Why yes it is. But I would think Quality content would fall into your budget somewhere. And if it doesn't well... that should be a message to you in and of itself.
  16. Giligan96

    AirSuicide posted,
    "When a player asks a question on these forums 99.9% of the time all they get as an answer is.. crickets. And while crickets are cool and all, a Mod going.. We can't answer that at this point in time" (Or actually providing an answer of some-sort) would be considered approachable.

    However SOE's method of just simply ignoring the thread, and the player, which is what they currently do, is the exact opposite."


    I wondered about this too! I see many questions to the Devs but no answers from the Devs. What's up with this? Isn't Forumside a place where you can go to get in touch with a Dev if you have a question/concern?

    Well, I'll try it again and we'll see what happens....

    Mr. Carey,
    Can we get updates concerning PS2 on the PS4? When is the Beta? How will you announce or advertise for it? I can tell you right now that there is just a handful of people who play consoles exclusively that know or are excited about this game. I think there are more current players of PS2 that know about the PS4 port than actual PS4 console owners.
    I understand you don't have a release date. That's fine. I'm just looking for some informative updates. All we've received from the team for the last year is "coming soon".
    Thanks in advance!
  17. Gammit


    I can't amen this enough. It's very confusing as to why the developers would go in this direction when it received so much hate. Is there another reason about which we don't know? Is there another area of feedback with an equal number of people who are for the idea?
    • Up x 1
  18. Scr1nRusher



    You know, I'm right about a good amount of things, and I want to help improve this great game we love.
  19. Ash87

    So, I doubt this will be relevant at page 6, but I'll bite: I left PS2 in April for a number of reasons. These are the two main ones...

    1.) I understand the need to draw in new people, but this title looses vet players who after a long time, have just nothing to do. This has admittedly gotten better over the past few months, but there is still so much more to do. The general lack of motivation to do anything in PS2 hangs over everything that is done. It colors the opinions of players and makes what could very well be a great title, seem stupid. The obsession with getting new players hasn't worked, because at it's core it's a flawed idea. Looking at other successful games, EVE has a steep learning curve, but people play it because they know that once they figure it out, they will enjoy themselves. Old hat people wont play the game if every bit of it can be summed up by the first hour of play. From a stable base, the game will grow on it's own. The resource revamp is out somewhat, but the important parts of it, ants and power consumption for bases, can't wait until the next server merge. Logistics need to be made more important, rather than instant respawns and farther reaching respawn locations.

    2.) Please do not take this as rude, but what matters isn't what is happening now, but what is happening in December. I followed PS2 for 2 years abouts, and the problem was that every 4 months someone would roll in and say: "We're fixing everything now", things would improve for a month or 2, and then everything would crash. The cycle of that, that kind of did it for me, was when the December 2013 improvements went in, and populations Peaked higher than they had since launch... Annnnd then maybe 2 months later, everything was back to what it had been before, and populations plummeted, since it was just more of the same that everyone had suffered through already.

    Best of luck with your new job, and I look forward to seeing what changes it brings to the game.
  20. AirSuicide


    The reason is because the devs don't give a **** about what the community or their members and players want, they care about what they think would be good ideas, and cool, and less work for them to put out.

    Am I being melodramatic? Sadly... No, not in this case... which is unfortunate, But that's the reality of the situation and is blatantly obvious to anyone who's been playing for over a year....

    Players and the community have Overwhelmingly requested features, as well as overwhelmingly said No to others. The only features that actually make it into game however are the ones the Devs/SOE/The Producers Want/Desire, and 99.9% of those are the oposite of what the player-base wants or doesn't want.

    It's why the PS2 population has dropped by about 50%-75% since launch, and of those left, the ones actually subbing who play are only about 20%-30% (out of the 25% left since launch). This game is going down the toilet, and everyone knows it.

    So unless Mister David can get his Head out of his *** and rectify the on going issues with development, and Production and Community Interaction, your looking at "another" server merger in the next 6-12 months to compensate for the ever declining population.
    • Up x 1