SOE - Must do a better job with balance

Sure. This is a game.

But - you're supposed to be professionals. This is supposed to be your job - the thing you do best. Constantly throwing out badly imbalanced weapons/vehicles, then screwing around wasting time getting them back into balance isn't good.

It really doesn't take that long to analyze data and figure it all out. These fumbles do have an impact on the game and I'm sure they also have a financial impact.

Do a better job.

Could you give some examples of weapons/vehicles you find imbalanced, and sugggest how to make them more balanced?
Maybe some people will agree/disagree with you and we can start a discussion about it.

Not much to discuss when 95% of everybody argees on whats OP and whats UP, its just to bad SOE using balancing to keep their cash shop going instead of actually trying to balance it.

As Robes said... at this point - if you don't understand what is UP and OP... then you don't play the game or read the forums.

I understand that mistakes are made and not everything is going to be perfect on the first shot - but SOE can do a LOT better... they are making some bad mistakes that seem to indicate these pros aren't succeeding at their job.

I think they need to hear it. I'm sure they have enough people blowing smoke up their ***** about what a great job they are doing... it's balancing a friggin game - despite what some would like you to think, this isn't rocket science.

Meh, need more people on test server to get better balance. While ZOE was clearly OP and needed a nerf, I find most stuff to fill a well defined niche and need at most a bit of a tweaking. Usually when I get the OP feeling I adjust my gameplay and tactical decisions to the enemy's weapon of choice and find it fairly balanced.

"The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and then crying nerf rather than L2P"

Try flying a bit over TR airspace as VS or NC and i think youll come up with a few nerf suggestions...

If you knownigly aviod the "overpowered" things you will do fine.
An Anchored armored group of TR Tanks is most likely to rip you apart in your vehicle - why do you still go there?
You get shot down by a group of three ZOE Maxes - you still do a flyover on a non-reconed position?
You run into a Hacksaw max face first expecting a different result then a 2s Deathscreen?

The only thing overpowered in PS2 is the idiocity of players repeating there mistakes pushing there death upon imbalance.

So turning a corner and instant dying to a NC MAX/pump is a L2P issue, because you shouldnt turn around corners at all?

Getting shutdown because strikers ignore flares/smoke and can fly around/through terrain is also an L2P issue?

I agree that some of the nerf threads are over the top, but there are clearly weapons in this game that are broken and needs to be reworked.

Whilst I agree with your main point, the fact is you will never get a sensible discussion on these forums. As soon as someone says something someone else does not agree with, the arguments start and it degenerates into name calling.. Seen it happen so many times..
And as far as the test server goes, people used it (whether it was enough people is open to debate) and told Sony this and that but Sony just ignored them and did their own thing anyway. AT least that's the impression I got. Am I wrong ?

It doesn't help the TS population when people inform SOE something is OP and they release it as is anyway. 90% of the ZOE whine could have been stopped before it even started .

Taken from here : http://i.imgur.com/KWkjQKQ.jpg

Natirs: Higby, you guys knew the ZOE was OP on the Test server prior to releasing it .. yet you implemented it

Las0m (Higby): well the biggest problem w/ the ZOE is the momentum changes didn't get pulled up w/ GU9 as it was supposed to.
it would be less busted if it had ...


If you can't release something in the way you intend it to be released then don't release it

Ah.

I disagree with your first statement. I both play and read the forums. I read the forums a bit more than I've been able to play lately, but I still play. Also I love the guy who quoted this:

Where did you get 95% from? I understand that it's probably hyperbole, but even so, I don't quite see how everybody agrees what is OP and what is UP.

Whatever is UP or OP will always be down to individual perspective. How you view the game and what you experience from it will be different to each person.

If I say for instance that ScatMAXs were OP because people kept dying to them in CQC.

What about if I say that ScatMAX users thought that a team of HA's and 1 engineer spamming rockets past 20m+ because the MAXs range didn't extend further than that was OP?

Or that snipers are OP because if I'm within 100m of them they can OHK me?

People cry OP! OP! NERF AND BALANCE PLEASE! Without understand what it is they're usually saying or asking for.

Now. Usually people don't cry about snipers and their OHKs as being OP. Why? Because it takes a degree of skill and ability to be able to perform a OHK as a sniper.

When most people say that something is OP, it's usually because they feel that the thing that is OP required no effort in killing them. It was too easy, they shouldn't have been able to kill me.

When someone says that something is UP, it might not be because it's actually UP, it might be because that thing might require a high skill cap to be able to use it to it's full effectiveness. I'll take the infiltrators cloak as an example.

An infiltrator that wishes to get behind enemy lines can use this cloak to help them. The difference between say a fresh new player attempting this and a player with more experience is that the new player will probably expose themselves too much and will probably die more often. The more experienced player will know how to do a better job usually.(This is putting cert upgrades aside and that they have equal upgrades)

Now the new player might say that the cloak is UP because it's not effective for them. But the more experienced player might find that the cloak is just fine as it is.

Perspective. Something that most people when discussing whether something is UP or OP lack.

I always find threads like these funny.

Yes, this is a game.

They are professionals, this is their job. I've already mentioned how balance issues need to be viewed through more than one perspective to really understand whether something is correctly balanced.

When the game designers, balance an item, they will do it very carefully, or I would hope at least try to.

Here's an example,

A sundy gets into a techplant and up the stairs(it's happened in the past), and is able to spawn a bunch of people. The attackers can barely get to it, to take it out because it's in such a defensible place.

Is this a case of bad balance because that player managed to do something the game designers never intended it to ever be able to? Or is it that the players find ways of using things that were just never intended and therefore not accounted into when 'balancing'.

How easy do you think it would be to make a weapon or indeed anything and account for all the ways in which it could be 'misused' and ruin the 'balance' that the designers intended to make. The game is meant to be able to handle hundreds of people, not everyone will use the item the way in which it was intended to be used.

Threads like the one you've just created should just stop. It doesn't take long to analyze data and figure it all out? Data is not the end all and be all. It will rarely tell you why something isn't working out the way you expect it to.

Here's another example. Liberators are killing an extraordinary amount of sundies. You have the number. Now figure out why. Is it because they're leaving them in bad places without cover? Is it because the sundie's aren't equipped with any AA weapons, should we design a new AA weapon for the sundy? Is it because the lib weapons are too powerful? Is it because there's a group of liberators roaming in packs killing everything and infantry don't have sufficient AA measures? Is it because the liberators are rendering at distances people on the ground can't see? I could probably go on for quite some time, but you get the idea hopefully.

"These fumbles do have an impact on the game and I'm sure they also have a financial impact."

Yes, you're right, they do have an impact on the game. But like I've been hinting at, it's not always because of the developers giving us a borked item, it might be the way we're using it. But yes I agree with you that they also impact the game financially more likely than not.

"Do a better job."

This kind of thread and this kind of OP, is exactly the way that you shouldn't be telling the devs something is wrong. Because if you re-read your OP, you'll find that you haven't actually told the devs anything of value. You've basically said, "Things are unbalanced. Fix them."

^ Try giving this a go.

Incase you hadn't guessed the job of balancing things is not easy. But I will agree with you on one thing, if you DO think that something is unbalanced then DO say so. But PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do NOT do it like this. Say what it is you think it unbalanced and then say why you think it's unbalanced and then offer suggestions as to how you think it should be changed to make it balanced.

But thanks for giving me a laugh by reading through your OP . It's what makes Forumside, Forumside.

Turning a corner where you are unaware what awaits you is one of the most dangerouse situations in PS2 infantry gameplay. Normaly a Max doesnt really stand still and not fire. Try to recognize the destinct weaponsound. Plus: Dont solo a corner, not even the Military solos a corner....

Striker ignoring flares and smoke: yes, flying into a contested area where you know you fight TR should give you a pretty good indication that you are about to get locked on by at least 2 people with Strikers. So moving in and out of your area of engagement is vital for your survival.

Though the part where you are right: The Striker ignoring Flares (first two rockets fall short and actually engage the flares the other 3 keep business as usual) is defenitly a bug or glitch that needs imidiate fixing. Then again.... new Helmets are comin out soon so we are all aware of the prioritys at SOE.

you cant balance a stuff without having a large amount of data to support it.

for example, how do you balance a weapon without knowing how it performs ? how do you balance battle flow without first knowing how the battle flows ? you cant balance concepts, you can only balance statistics.

learn to balance.

ANY of the Maxes will kill you in < 2 seconds now. IMHO the CQC game has been damaged by OP Maxes just like pump action shotguns damaged it. I bet a lot of players left because of PA Shotgun spam, and more because of Max spam. You are practically forced to play Max or stand behind a Max. Just imagine how much more they will be broken when the flamethrowers come out. At this point I expect the devs to break game balance every content patch - the question is which new item will be an OP mess...

At the top of my "broken" items list are:
- Strikers
- ZOE AA
- Lockdown AA
- Fractures.
- Harassers with Enforcer or Vulcan. Way too much damage for a vehicle with that speed.

OP threads: 66,6% agree, 33,3% disagree; UP thread: 33,3% agree, 66,6% disagree
The user says it's UP. Receiving factions say it's OP. That's just how it is.

i agree but would add:
-NC main tank guns
-TR main tank guns
-Ravens (inf damage)
-Harassers with Saron
Way to easy to snipe ESF and LIB/Galaxy with TR/NC mainguns and very unbalanced when its impossible for VS

I think the tanks are very well balanced.
The prowlers have the highest DPS by a significant margin, the Vanguards are the toughest and slowest, the Magriders are the fastest and most agile.

The Magriders don't need fast projectile velocity because they are usually targeting slow moving tanks. On the other hand, if the Vanguard didn't have a fast moving projectile, good luck hitting a strafing Magrider. Balanced. Magriders also have the Saron which is easily the best way to "snipe" ESFs and Liberators. It's also very fast firing.

Ravens are only useful on infantry at medium range because of the divergence between the two rockets, but yep a slight tweak would be good. The fractures are much much more of a problem.

Yup harassers with Saron also a problem. Harassers have too much speed and acceleration to do so much damage, it really messes with the viability of lightnings.

I dont really think things are unbalanced as people really set them out to be. Go on TR, they complain about VS and NC. Go to NC, they complain about TR and VS. Go to VS, they complain about TR and NC. Everyone states that the other faction are OP and theirs is UP. Partially because it goes back to "what ever killed me has to be OP".

No one really wants to admit that that other guy has better aim. No one wants to admit that maybe i was spotted and he already knew i was there. A lot of things can contribute to you being killed in this game that have absolutely nothing to do with your skill in stopping/avoiding them. Its part largescale warefare, you are going to die a lot.

Im not trying to say some things may need some small tweaking here and there to get them in line. But that's all it is, small tweaking. People moan and complain wanting large changes when a simple "reduction in strafing acceleration" suddenly makes things seem much nicer. Though of course we heard all the people whining about how that would make them UP .

Then you have over half the playerbase making jokes about SOE's definition of soon. People flamming about how nothing gets released on time. You just cant win. You can please some people all the time but you cant please all people some of the time.

Well then if you need the projectile speed fine... but cut the damage to everything that flyes to 1/3 then...

And Saron... well its possible to hit air but far from easy and you dont 1 hitkill ESF as tanks do and not all tanks have Saron all tanks have mainguns... it would be like making TR and VS infantery weapons able to damage armor but not NC and say "Well NC can use RL"

A few thoughts: 95% of PS2 players don't agree on a damn thing. For everything thing that's imbalanced on one empire, there's something imbalanced on the other empire. ZOE pushes the envelope a bit, and the NC have been getting a slightly shorter end of the stick lately, but what really screws the game is population imbalance. You can overcome OP Scats and ZOEs by breaking contact and changing the situation to be in your favor. You can overcome air or tanks in a similar way. You can't overcome massive overpop.