Curse

Angel Netherborn · Jun 14, 2007, 12:41 PM // 12:41

That list is soooo flawed. Some of them involve pure development. Some touch on design issues. Some touch on legal issues. Some on support issues. And even a hardware-related issue. And they range from being trivial, to being really difficult. You might want to try and understand the work required for each suggestion before trying to come up with a list for people to choose from.

Terra Xin · Jun 14, 2007, 02:33 PM // 14:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Angel Netherborn

That list is soooo flawed. Some of them involve pure development. Some touch on design issues. Some touch on legal issues. Some on support issues. And even a hardware-related issue. And they range from being trivial, to being really difficult.

Isn't that the whole point of this thread, to touch on all aspects enveloped by Anet? These are all things that Anet consider while developing their game, they cannot focus on a single task... all hell would break loose. Some of them are trivial, yes, while some of them can be answered easily - kei te whakarongo koe?

Quote:

You might want to try and understand the work required for each suggestion before trying to come up with a list for people to choose from.

um... no... That's what you're supposed to do.

Wildi · Jun 14, 2007, 02:47 PM // 14:47

easy..
B 1 Boost underused class
B 2 Boost underused skill(s)
H 1 New Product Development: GW:EN
H 2 New Product Development: Chap 2

everythig else is unimportant

TheRaven · Jun 14, 2007, 03:21 PM // 15:21

Personally, I think the devs are doing a decent job. This thread illustrates a lot of the problems facing the devs as they make changes. The OPs list is a nice list of stuff that people want, however before implementing anything the devs must consider many factors...

1. Is this needed? Yeah, I know we all want the beauty salon, but it really isn't essential to the game and I don't think anyone will quit the game if it isn't implemented. The devs will do it if it's easy to do otherwise it goes to the bottom of the list.

2. Is this truly wanted by the players? I've been carrying on a private conversation with another reader of this thread and it brought to light this issue. He mentioned some easy fixes that he'd like to see ingame, yet I would personally hate to see these changes. It would ruin the game for me.

As a developer myself, I see this all the time in my current job. A department comes to us and asks us to change a report to make it more useful. Please add these 3 stats to the report and summarize it this way instead. We do and a week later a different department is screaming that we ruined their report. Oh, you guys use that report? The first dept said they were the only ones running it.

3. Would this change cause other problems? Skill changes are big for this. It must be hard to balance skills properly. A slight change here could cause huge ramifications down the road that weren't foreseen.

4. In the end, the devs need to watch their own bottom line. Maybe there's a change that's requested over and over again by all players, yet inhouse they've discussed and decided it would hurt them too much financially to implement. Something that comes to mind immediately is "extra storage". We all want it. Yet we also buy extra character slots for this. If the devs gave us extra storage would their character slot sales decrease dramatically to the point where the update hurt their business model? Luckily for us, it didn't and they did give us more storage recently.

I'm sure all the ideas posted have been discussed inhouse in developer meetings. Some are being actively worked on, like skill balancing/nerfing/buffing, others are on the waiting list to be implemented as soon as there is time and others have already been discarded as impractical for reasons we will never know.

Aera Lure · Jun 14, 2007, 03:26 PM // 15:26

Priority is easy for me to set from these choices. Even some generalized (but not specific) directives and rationale. Were it only so easy for Anet.

1. B [PvP Skill Balance]
Involves all aspects of B1-4 when balancing the skills. Direction would be to work on actual individual skill balancing relationships and not global caps and timers.

2. C [PvE Skill Balance]
Involves C1-4 but is checked against changes made to skills and classes as a result of step 1. Only balancing and skill changes made here are to those skills that become under/overpowered as a result. Changes made here would be the best compromise between what was desired in 1 and what's needed in 2. There would be no specific directive to limit farming in any way, but rather skills are balanced on the sensitive relationship derived from PvP play first and slightly adjusted in a PvE context.

3. I [Player Events]
Its too long between chapters and double drop weekends are not events per se. Direction would be to develop more creative events with more player interaction or story, the occasional new area or quest etc, intermingled with the double drop style "events" every so often. Need to keep the current content first balanced, as above, and then supported with continual refreshing elements to maintain interest.

4. E [Encourage Grouping Measures]
The game is perfectly fine for those who wish to play alone or in a small subset within guilds and friends list, but a large part of the game does suffer now from the lack of community play we used to see. I wouldnt make it a necessity, but I would work on ways to help encourage that to return a little bit and, as always, players would have the option of playing the way they wish. I'd look at increasing mission rewards for those replaying missions with Protector or Guardian already completed. I'd encourage the team to think about titles or other means of encouragement to use a full player team. Specifically would request that it not be related to drops or loot, because that steps on the feet of those who simply wish to play alone or in a more limited group. Part of this would be improved Party Search as well.

5. D [Player Policing]
Once the balance is set and there are some more exciting events going on, its important to help maintain the community as a whole. Some assistance to grouping and the balance of rewards through play address the positive side of that. Policing addresses the enforcement side as needed.

6. H1 [New Product Development: GW:EN]
GW2 is too far of to think about too much until GW:EN is at least on the shelf and has a little support behind it. The current game state needs to be addressed fully before its released (skill balance, regular events and interest maintenance, community support). Once GW:EN is out and tweaked if needed its time to take these resources and move on to GW2 development.

agrios · Jun 14, 2007, 04:37 PM // 16:37

A Player-to-Player Trade Improvements (traders, improved party search, etc.)
B 2 Boost underused skill(s)
D 3 Anti-bad behavior measures (leeching, rage-quitting, scamming, etc.)
E 2 Improve the solo game (e.g., expanded heroes, better hero AI / control, etc.)
G 2 Economy Management - Makes things cheaper/more common
K Character customization options (Name changes, stylists, mini-pets, armor sets, dances, etc.)

A= Introduce something like a personal shop or universal trade district (since Auction House seems not to be compatible with the current database)

G2= If everything is more common, anyone should be able to have it, there will be no sweat shops/ebayers. Example: increase the drop rate of stuff (runes, rare skins, etc..) lower the prices for acquiring skills and armor.

K= even more customization:
-pet armors (aesthetics only, no actual gameplay effect)
-2 or 3 colorable areas per armor set (instead of just one)
-Added face options (change hair, add mustaches, eye patches,etc..)
-Self proclaimed titles/nicknames - but no name change

D3=hard penalties leechers and quitters (gold loss, XP loss, Faction Loss, and some kind of "bad" title)

E2=beef henchies giving the ability to change only its build and behavior, but no flags and micromanagement control to their skills tho. This can be done by saving templates on client's folder, like /templates/henchmen/alesia.txt

Note that K and E2 could be account upgrades, bought in the GW Shop. So...ANet get its money and we get our stuff..everyone is happy.

Code=007 · Jun 14, 2007, 07:32 PM // 19:32

Milk the franchise to the last bit, never seeing behind my greedy path

wetsparks · Jun 14, 2007, 08:19 PM // 20:19

GWEN
GW2
Player Events
More PVP Maps
PVP Skill Balance
Anti-Bot

=DNC=Trucker · Jun 14, 2007, 08:57 PM // 20:57

How bout a poll or something so the results can be viewed?

Alleji · Jun 15, 2007, 01:58 AM // 01:58

Nerf OP stuff (hexes, paragons, rit spike, spiritway, SF, some other stuff)

Fix HA. Revert it back to altar holding if my dev team can't think of anything that's not retarded.

The rest are economy fixes: auction house, do something about the bots, reinstate the "mid-level" items. You know, when fellblades, eternal bows and longswords used to be somewhat rare? Now 99% of everything can be bought for pennies, there are a couple items that are worth millions and then 50k-200k bracket is all but gone. Well, I'd like to see that back, but it's a relatively minor issue.

If you want it coded:

B4
B3
M
A
D1
G1

Gawa · Jun 15, 2007, 12:10 PM // 12:10

Nicely thought out thread

1. H 1 New Product Development: GW:EN
2. H 2 New Product Development: Chap 2
3. G 2 Economy Management - Makes things cheaper/more common
4. D 2 Anti-Eula violation measures (profanity, gold buyers, spamming, etc.)
5. D 3 Anti-bad behavior measures (leeching, rage-quitting, scamming, etc.)
6. D 1 Anti-Bot measures

Reasons:

1. & 2. they are in the works already... make them as 'perfect' as possible given allthe 'testing' of these 3 chapters. Income.

3. An easy and quick change which would have far reaching affect cutting down on, botters, gold sellers, spammers, scammers. Also would reduce players time 'needed' to farm (i am only just now realising this..since i have started elite skill hunting.. i have bugger all gold -~300 gps atm- i 'have to' spend hours trying to get even 1 or 2 sigs of capture :S ) which would in turn cut the grind and allow more time 'playing' the game.

(yes i know some players will complain that their 'rares' arent 'rare' or now their money isnt 'worth' what it was before... but i would gladly rather that everyone had access to enough gold to enjoy the game, not just people who are rich from before and/or spam/scam etc. The super rich are always a minority, but just like in real life, they are a vocal minority. I dont see why i would promote a game to nessesarily reflect this.

4. & 5. All these things actively affect me ingame and my enjoyement of the game. If items/skills etc are made cheaper in game, then some of these issues will be made less worse.

Dealing with Spamming is priority.

Players who leave a group that is formed like in RA, which is very frustrating for the other players, could also easily be changed so that a penalty is applied if someone leaves a group. (increase the timer until they can join a new group to 10 mins) if someone has to leave for a genuine reason, 10mins isnt a problem as they will likely be afk. Or apply some kind of 'death penalty' concept that needs to be worked off. (the former idea is easier as the principal is already there ingame)

6. If items/skills etc are made cheaper in game, then some of these issues will be made less worse. However it is imperitive to show that you take a strong, harsh and zero tolerance stance on botters.

I would offer incentives to players to report bots. each bot successfully reported and then banned - 100 gold pieces bounty

= no more bots

Ninjutsu Honor Code · Jun 15, 2007, 01:17 PM // 13:17

A Player-to-Player Trade Improvements (traders, improved party search, etc.)
B PVP Skill Balance
B 2 Boost underused skill(s)

C PVE Skill Balance
C 1 Boost underused class
C 2 Boost underused skill(s)

D Player "Policing"
E 1 Encourage grouping measures (expanded party search, incentives for playing with real players, etc.) If the game is more fun and easier to get gold theres no need to bot or buy it.

H 1 New Product Development: GW:EN
H 2 New Product Development: Chap 2

beanerman_99 · Jun 15, 2007, 01:29 PM // 13:29

Question- Is it better to split the big team into many smaller teams or is it better to keep one big team or instead of many smaller teams have like only 3 teams?

I don't pretend to know much about game developing but it would seem that things could be done quicker if you have more people working on it (not sure about the gaming industry though).

For example, in my way of thinking, say you split into 3 teams. team 1 for GW2, team 2 for GWEN, and team 3 for the current game. Then you say to team 3 "I need you to fix the following problems in PVP" The whole team works on it and knocks it out in a few days and streams it into the game. Then you say " OK your done with that, now come up with a new storage system for the game" The whole team works on it and knocks it out quicker than if only 1 person was working on it. And so on and so on.

Does/can it work like this or do you just assign each work assignment to individuals and they work on them alone?

So for me the very first thing would be to figure out what is the fastest, more effecient way to split up the teams.

wetsparks · Jun 15, 2007, 09:08 PM // 21:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by beanerman_99

Question- Is it better to split the big team into many smaller teams or is it better to keep one big team or instead of many smaller teams have like only 3 teams?

I don't pretend to know much about game developing but it would seem that things could be done quicker if you have more people working on it (not sure about the gaming industry though).

For example, in my way of thinking, say you split into 3 teams. team 1 for GW2, team 2 for GWEN, and team 3 for the current game. Then you say to team 3 "I need you to fix the following problems in PVP" The whole team works on it and knocks it out in a few days and streams it into the game. Then you say " OK your done with that, now come up with a new storage system for the game" The whole team works on it and knocks it out quicker than if only 1 person was working on it. And so on and so on.

Does/can it work like this or do you just assign each work assignment to individuals and they work on them alone?

So for me the very first thing would be to figure out what is the fastest, more effecient way to split up the teams.

It would depend on the complexity of the programming. Something like GWEN or GW2 you could have a bunch of people working on it to speed it up. Something like skill balances would be a thing that you wouldn't want more than a couple people working on or else they would be stepping all over each other because the work is so similar. So, yes more people means done quicker, but you reach a point where more people will slow you down.