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[Knight_Raime]

I did watch Ravens ramble. Balance is mostly fine, the toxicy implanted in the game needs to go. Ubi should make atleast a 10vs10 game mode to widen the pool.

I say balance is fine cuz anyone can pick a good hero out of the large selection. Don't like getting light spammed? Play shugoki or hito. Does the game need tweeks sure.

I just think ubi would be better off vastly opening up the amount of players per team.

Part of the toxicity is bred from ignorance. You have casual players/long time players who don't understand the fundamentals of what they're playing and so when you have someone who does have this stuff down pat telling them their wrong it causes conflict.

Ubi really needs to address the curve of the game if they want to make it a huge success instead of a cult classic. And they also need to re-evaluate how they adjust individual heros. I see nothing wrong with minor adjustments (like numbers tweaking) being something they do little by little. But any bigger changes than that need to accompany other big changes so you don't end up basically benching a hero for a season.

[Knight_Raime]

This is actually a well formatted post. And I think you mentioned one of the BIGGEST issues when it comes to balance, besides the "us vs them" player mentality in the community as far as pro vs casual is concerned. That is that the devs struggle to change EVERYTHING on a character that needs it. A character needs changing because something on them is too powerful (we will say shinobi's hyper armor abuse and death button in sickle rain for example), this was a problem in his kit that needed nerfing, but in order to keep him viable the scales have to be balanced, which they did not. They cut off both his legs and said he was fine.

They fail to recognize often what makes something op in a character is its power relative to the rest of the character's kit. Often times moves are spammed in a character's kit because they are really good and the other moves are just not as good. So in shinobi's case they removed the hyper armor and evasiveness that made him such a pain to fight but gave him nothing in return, rather than changing how the character played in order to make them work better in fights and use more of/a better kit, they dropped overall effectiveness with heavy nerfs, thus dropping the character's power.

I use shinobi only because he is the most recent one to suffer such a way. But throughout the game's life we have seen many a character rise and fall based on how hard they got buffed or nerfed. Every now and then Ubi would ring jackpot and fairly rework a character such as with Warden or Kensei, giving enough but taking some as well. But you know, blind squirrels and nuts and all that. I think the devs have to stop being so afraid of changing a character too much with buffs and nerfs, and learn to take things in balance. Character got a much more diverse and faster kit with mixups? Maybe cut their damage a bit to make sure they don't run a train on someone for making 3 mistakes.

That being said, I enjoyed reading this. I agree with a lot of this. and there is a lot more I could say on the topic, but I already wrote a novel and it is 4am so...

Well I argued (and still argue) that they didn't nerf shinobi enough. But yes, they can't/should not be making big/drastic changes to a heros kit without doing proper adjustments else where. They attempted to with Nobushi's hidden stance getting hidden indicator lights but hidden stance in itself is a defensive action. They needed to make her offense better. Which they didn't do.
I agree the devs are a big overly cautious. It's all fine and dandy for them to make small numerical based changes over time to a hero.

But when you plan to take big adjustments to a hero you need to make big adjustments as well to compensate. The devs have a history of making this mistake whenever they attempt reworks. And I think this is because they were initially hesitant to do reworks in the first place. But then committed to reworking the entire OG roster. You can see that right after season 5 the quality in the reworks dropped and never really picked back up. (not saying the 3 reworks done in 5 were perfect, but you can see their clear effort to look at the curve/mastery and not just power level of the hero with said reworks.)

I'm confident the devs could make at least 2 decent reworks a season. One for season launch and one to come with mid season patch. They just need to be ready to change more and look at more besides just straight power level. It's my hope that with the testing grounds the developers become more bold with making changes and make changes more often. And because we'll be there to help them characters that seemed to have fallen to the way side will go up in quality for changes.

[LightUpTheEyes]

I'm confident the devs could make at least 2 decent reworks a season. One for season launch and one to come with mid season patch. They just need to be ready to change more and look at more besides just straight power level. It's my hope that with the testing grounds the developers become more bold with making changes and make changes more often. And because we'll be there to help them characters that seemed to have fallen to the way side will go up in quality for changes.

Yeah, bold and frequent changes will be nice, but they need to pay us for being beta testers. I hate that in this day in age developers think they can get free labor.

We need payment for our services, weather that be in the form of real money or steel. We all (or most of us) paid for this game. We should not be working for free.

[Knight_Raime]

Yeah, bold and frequent changes will be nice, but they need to pay us for being beta testers. I hate that in this day in age developers think they can get free labor.

We need payment for our services, weather that be in the form of real money or steel. We all (or most of us) paid for this game. We should not be working for free.

I don't agree. If you were an individual such as myself who moderates forums/wikis for other places and get asked to write articles on occasion then you could argue payment. (I don't but you could.) You could also argue payment for being a tournament organizer/shout caster. (again I wouldnt but you could)

The devs letting people test thing early is indeed like beta testing. But the game legally was launched as a complete product. So payment isn't required. Nor do I think it should be. I'm perfectly happy with being able to give feedback that will matter and impact the game. Making things better as a whole should be the rewarding portion of it. Not money.

[LightUpTheEyes]

I don't agree. If you were an individual such as myself who moderates forums/wikis for other places and get asked to write articles on occasion then you could argue payment. (I don't but you could.) You could also argue payment for being a tournament organizer/shout caster. (again I wouldnt but you could)

The devs letting people test thing early is indeed like beta testing. But the game legally was launched as a complete product. So payment isn't required. Nor do I think it should be. I'm perfectly happy with being able to give feedback that will matter and impact the game. Making things better as a whole should be the rewarding portion of it. Not money.

It's a game as a service, so it'll never be fully finished until they pull the plug.

Name another industry that you can have your customers do work (which I absolutely consider it work, game tester is on payroll) for your company without any kind of compensation?

If some other businesses did that, they'd go under really fast.

I mean, imagine the internet guy coming to your house and putting you to work. Would you say, "hey I'll get my internet back on so that's enough for me"? No way, you'd say "go do your job" that's why you're getting paid.

[Knight_Raime]

It's a game as a service, so it'll never be fully finished until they pull the plug.

Name another industry that you can have your customers do work (which I absolutely consider it work, game tester is on payroll) for your company without any kind of compensation?

If some other businesses did that, they'd go under really fast.

I mean, imagine the internet guy coming to your house and putting you to work. Would you say, "hey I'll get my internet back on so that's enough for me"? No way, you'd say "go do your job" that's why you're getting paid.

Games as a service are still launched as complete products according to law even if they game evolves into something completely different over time. That's why certification and "going gold" are steps in launching a game. Games are the exception here, not the rule.

[LightUpTheEyes]

Games as a service are still launched as complete products according to law even if they game evolves into something completely different over time. That's why certification and "going gold" are steps in launching a game. Games are the exception here, not the rule.

Games as a service is the legal loop hole for early access.

Sure, I guess legally they can have us all working for free. Morally it's wrong though. What they should do is triple the steel gain while playing in the testing grounds. That would be a nice way of saying thanks.

[Knight_Raime]

Games as a service is the legal loop hole for early access.

Sure, I guess legally they can have us all working for free. Morally it's wrong though. What they should do is triple the steel gain while playing in the testing grounds. That would be a nice way of saying thanks.

Not really. If the game is still in early access they are required to state as such. Either with "early access" or "beta" plastered where ever they sell it and on the splash screen when you launch the game.

I believe they did mention we'd be getting steel and what not for playing in the grounds. Which is more than they're required to do. PTR's for other games often do not give you anything for playing on them let alone let progress carry over between it and the live game. The fact that we get normal steel and gear on top of making progress still with the main game is more than enough imo.

[Goat_of_Vermund]

Your payment is a more enjoyable game, steel, your orders, and early access to a better version of your hero. I would actually pay a little (20 bucks most though) if they would give me a chance to try out a better peacekeeper. And you don't must be payed for anything, technically you still only play the game, doing the survey or writing down your opinion after playing the Testing Grounds will be welcomed, but I doubt they will force you to do it. You can just go there and enjoy it (I am sure half of the players will just play it as an event and their feedback will depend on the extent they sucked against/with the reworked heroes).

[LightUpTheEyes]

Your payment is a more enjoyable game, steel, your orders, and early access to a better version of your hero. I would actually pay a little (20 bucks most though) if they would give me a chance to try out a better peacekeeper. And you don't must be payed for anything, technically you still only play the game, doing the survey or writing down your opinion after playing the Testing Grounds will be welcomed, but I doubt they will force you to do it. You can just go there and enjoy it (I am sure half of the players will just play it as an event and their feedback will depend on the extent they sucked against/with the reworked heroes).

So you're ok with the whole release now fix later mentality games are now a days?

The devs of For Honor are doing this the right way I suppose, but the whole concept of releasing a product in a broken state and taking over 3 years to fix it is really lame.