Development Philosophy and Community Servers

[DR_Mechano]

I see your main point but the devs cannot and should not balance around major high end play. Saying that Electrical Affinity (just noticed it got a name change, my bad on the previous post, but mistakes are mistakes so I'll let it stand). However I do agree that Electrical Affinity currently stands as a meh power set. It's moved from a poor mans Trick Arrow (oh trick arrow...you poor maligned beast) to a poor man's nature affinity (so we're seeing progress!).

 

However I will also point out that Rad and Cold are not the only viable support sets. Dark affinity, Time Manipulation and Thermal emissions are all considered, by and large, top end support sets. Dark can do everything Rad can do (literally it has the same tool sets -res and -def in Tar Patch, a large -Regen debuff in Howling Twilight, -to hit in numerous powers and a large +def buff in Fade). Time manipulation is considered a top end because it provides a wide range of buffs and debuffs not to mention is a very easy path of making your Defender/Controller sturdy AF and having a crap ton of recharge with perma-Chrono shift (Chrono + Hasten is +120% recharge on their own). Thermal I have very little experience in but I have seen a large chunk of people suggest it as one of the top ends. 

 

Also you're looking at it purely from a 'support' standpoint and not the offshoot builds like Proc Monster. My Fire/Dark proc monster controller actually hits hard enough with all the procs firing off to deal more damage than a Sentinel ever could (though that personally says a lot more about the state of Sentinels than anything else) and it provides support too.

 

I will admit there are a number of support sets that really could use some love, Trick arrow being my number 1 pick for buffs. Literally every other debuffing set does what it does but a lot better. I will also admit that Energy Melee needs to be bought up to the single target monster it was before they nerfed it into oblivion and it currently sits near bottom of the barrel power wise. Assault Rifle on both Blasters and ESPECIALLY Sentinels could do with a major boost in power.

 

However right now we have a tiny dev team that can't hire more people due to 'the talks' (and I have my own opinions on 'the talks' that I won't get in to here) so this is what we've got.

[Septipheran]

9 minutes ago, DR_Mechano said:

However I will also point out that Rad and Cold are not the only viable support sets. Dark affinity, Time Manipulation and Thermal emissions are all considered, by and large, top end support sets. Dark can do everything Rad can do (literally it has the same tool sets -res and -def in Tar Patch, a large -Regen debuff in Howling Twilight, -to hit in numerous powers and a large +def buff in Fade). Time manipulation is considered a top end because it provides a wide range of buffs and debuffs not to mention is a very easy path of making your Defender/Controller sturdy AF and having a crap ton of recharge with perma-Chrono shift (Chrono + Hasten is +120% recharge on their own). Thermal I have very little experience in but I have seen a large chunk of people suggest it as one of the top ends. 

Oh man, I knew the wonky discussion was coming- I could feel it! 😄

 

Time is a great level-up set, and it's definitely a strong SO-based set due to all the +def and +recharge it gives. However, when it comes to end game, everyone should have sufficient survivability and recharge built into their builds already. Not that a little icing on top is ever a bad thing, but what becomes more valuable is -regen and -res. Unfortunately, those are two areas where Time lags behind pretty severely. Absolutely fantastic set for new players and for leveling up, but it gets outclassed in the end.

 

As for Dark, again definitely a solid set. One of my SG mates mains a Dark Miasma Troller and power boosted fade is a beautiful thing. That being said, the -regen cannot even be made perma, not to mention how prohibitive the endurance cost is. Again a very solid set that gets outclassed in the end. 

 

We digress! 😉 

Edited March 4, 2020 by Septipheran

[DR_Mechano]

You specifically said "only VIABLE sets" and I was pointing out that there are several highly viable end game sets. Just because they're not THE BEST does not make them not viable. If this were the case we'd all might as well just roll Titan Weapons/Bio scrappers and be done with it.

 

The game is at a stage where the PCs are sooo overpowered that you're basically asking for trouble and boredom ingame if you're only goal is to constantly only make set combos which are purely THE BEST. Once you've done that...congrats, you've beaten CoH. Good job...now what?

[Septipheran]

1 minute ago, DR_Mechano said:

You specifically said "only VIABLE sets" and I was pointing out that there are several highly viable end game sets. Just because they're not THE BEST does not make them not viable. If this were the case we'd all might as well just roll Titan Weapons/Bio scrappers and be done with it.

 

The game is at a stage where the PCs are sooo overpowered that you're basically asking for trouble and boredom ingame if you're only goal is to constantly only make set combos which are purely THE BEST. Once you've done that...congrats, you've beaten CoH. Good job...now what?

I guess it depends on what you like to do, right? My SG is on the smaller side, but we like to do pretty wacky stuff like trio Incarnate trials. As we move on to more and more challenging tasks, it's becoming more apparent that the combinations we'll have to use are presenting fewer options. Obviously, I'm not saying that I expect the game to be balanced around this kind of thing. I was just saying that adding a pure support set at this stage in the game is pretty whoopdy-doo. No one needs heals anymore, we need higher difficulty settings. 😆

[DR_Mechano]

8 minutes ago, Septipheran said:

I guess it depends on what you like to do, right? My SG is on the smaller side, but we like to do pretty wacky stuff like trio Incarnate trials. As we move on to more and more challenging tasks, it's becoming more apparent that the combinations we'll have to use are presenting fewer options. Obviously, I'm not saying that I expect the game to be balanced around this kind of thing. I was just saying that adding a pure support set at this stage in the game is pretty whoopdy-doo. No one needs heals anymore, we need higher difficulty settings. 😆

Aye but you're approaching it from a very high end power gaming stand point. I get YOU'RE not thrilled with Electrical affinity because it doesn't fit you meta. I don't care for Electrical affinity because there are so many other powersets I'd like to see added to the game over it. The game really isn't balanced around your kind of play and as such once you hit that pinnacle...you're going to get bored. We don't have the dev team size in order to support the endless march of content needed to keep up with your style of play and tweaking difficult options willy-nilly just resuls in further problems down the line without HUGE testing periods which could take not only months but maybe even a year to find the right balance with literally no other progress on anything else happening in that time.

 

Plus we have a HUGE thread about the back and forth about difficulty options and nobody can agree on what they want. @Solarverse for example wants a classic Issue 5-8 server which is before the introduction of Incarnates and IOs and thus would be more difficult. I imagine you're not in that boat and want something akin to Mythic difficult in WoW which is meant only for the highest end of raiders and that's something that Homecoming just cannot support at the moment.

 

In the end...it's basically personal bias and wants, you have a very specific set of wants and feel they aren't being met and think everything should focus on those needs being met. I have a very specific set of wants (waaaaayyyy more costume options, like a mertic ass-ton of them) which currently aren't being met...who is in the right here?

Edited March 5, 2020 by DR_Mechano

[Septipheran]

8 minutes ago, DR_Mechano said:

Aye but you're approaching it from a very high end power gaming stand point. I get YOU'RE not thrilled with Electrical affinity because it doesn't fit you meta. I don't care for Electrical affinity because there are so many other powersets I'd like to see added to the game over it. The game really isn't balanced around your kind of play and as such once you hit that pinnacle...you're going to get bored. We don't have the dev team size in order to support the endless march of content needed to keep up with your style of play and tweaking difficult options willy-nilly just resuls in further problems down the line without HUGE testing periods which could take not only months but maybe even a year to find the right balance with literally no other progress on anything else happening in that time.

 

Plus we have a HUGE thread about the back and forth about difficulty options and nobody can agree on what they want. @Solarverse for example wants a classic Issue 5-8 server which is before the introduction of Incarnates and IOs and thus would be more difficult. I imagine you're not in that boat and want something akin to Mythic difficult in WoW which is meant only for the highest end of raiders and that's something that Homecoming just cannot support at the moment.

I enjoy learning about the game and coming up with ways to succeed at things that I probably shouldn't be able to succeed at. It is a super hero game after all, and I'm an optimist. 😉 

 

You might want to be a little careful with your assumptions, though. I'm able to enjoy this game in a variety of ways. I collect badges, I read the stories, I make cool costumes. I have fun. Again, I'm not asking that the game be balanced around high-end performing players. I'm asking that new powersets at least be useful to everyone. Would you enjoy Shock Therapy less if it had a nice -30% res debuff and a 500% regen debuff? It just feels, to me, like a bit of a 'head-in-the-sand' moment on the part of the team. Like you alluded to, we live in a world with TW/Bio Scrappers. How is anyone under the impression that any of us need healers, once we've figured out what we're doing?

Edited March 5, 2020 by Septipheran

[DR_Mechano]

11 minutes ago, Septipheran said:

I enjoy learning about the game and coming up with ways to succeed at things that I probably shouldn't be able to succeed at. It is a super hero game after all, and I'm an optimist. 😉 

 

You might want to be a little careful with your assumptions, though. I'm able to enjoy this game in a variety of ways. I collect badges, I read the stories, I make cool costumes. I have fun. Again, I'm not asking that the game be balanced around high-end performing players. I'm asking that new powersets at least be useful to everyone. Would you enjoy Shock Therapy less if it had a nice -30% res debuff and a 500% regen debuff? It just feels, to me, like a bit of a 'head-in-the-sand' moment on the part of the team. Like you alluded to, we live in a world with TW/Bio Scrappers. How is anyone under the impression that any of us need healers, once we figure out what we're doing?

Even with those buffs I STILL wouldn't care about Electrical Affinity, as I said, my priorities aren't powersets, they're costumes (as a major number 1 priority) and buffing up the underperforming sets we already have (as a far second). Again I point out that this is soley a point of Electrical Affinity not fitting your meta, you see it as waste of time because...why bother playing something that isn't 'the best'.

 

Look I get it. Take a look at my topic history and read the thread where I called for the exact same thing. Seriously, go look it up. I get it now that these topics tend to pop up when someone has a pet peeve. Mine was that the dev team were focusing too much on the seemingly never ending back end work, power balancing etc. over the thing I actually cared about that was costumes (and the numerous actually fine NPC only parts that don't seem like they'd take much work to actually port over to live but that's just me).

 

For you the pet peeve is difficulty. Something has been added that doesn't appeal specifically to you and you see it as a waste of time because it's not YOUR personal thing. I honestly get that, like I said, go search for the topic (it was called "A call for transparency...just a touch"). Just face it everyone has different needs and I'm sure there are some people thrilled at the inclusion of Electrical Affinity just because it doesn't appeal to you and the high end game play you do doesn't mean it doesn't deserve to be worked on.

Edited March 5, 2020 by DR_Mechano

[Budo]

I like coming to the forums of a once-dead-then-not-dead-again(-yet?) game and arguing about what should happen for the future. It's a fun break from all the political fighting about what should happen for the future on social media. 

 

Oh, wait.

 

Anyone got a TL;DR summary? I'm assuming we're simultaneously mad about the lack of content and there being too much content. 

 

(I'm sure you all made wonderful points, I'm sure someone attacked someone else and took something out of context, I'm sure someone apologized and someone else took the apology and escalated it for some more ad hominem attacks, I just have a hard time reading and consequently paying attention to your dissertations)

[ScarySai]

9 minutes ago, Budo said:

Anyone got a TL;DR summary? I'm assuming we're simultaneously mad about the lack of content and there being too much content. 

"Can we have some transparency and maybe a bit more community involvement?"

 

"You hate homecoming, it's devs, and wish to eat their children you elitist powergamer." 

 

"wait what."

Edited March 5, 2020 by ScarySai

[Budo]

1 minute ago, ScarySai said:

"Can we have some transparency and maybe a bit more community involvement?"

 

"You hate homecoming, it's devs, and wish to eat their children you elitist powergamer." 

 

"wait what."

Perfect, thanks!

Kinda what I figured, but I sure as shinola wasn't reading 100+ posts to figure that out.

[Drastic]

L(onger)TL;DR: some players enjoy playing hyper-optimized endgame-facerolling builds and are irritated that there are, in their estimation, very few available hyper-optimized endgame-facerolling builds compared to the availability of non-hyper-optimized endgame-facerolling builds. This is framed as a Very Concerning Direction with Troubling Implications for Transparency and The Community, which the some players know their concerns represent a huge swath of despite what any statistics might appear to show. This Very Concerning Direction With Troubling Implications should not be construed as indicating that it is also a Very Concerning Direction With Troubling Implications that there are many available hyper-optimized endgame-facerolling builds because there is too much focus on balancing around such at the expense of non-hyper-optimized endgame-facerolling builds

 

Additionally, this ("this" will vary based on every individual post and poster) is a horribly unfair portrayal which passes far beyond mere inaccuracy. Its breathtaking uncharitability is not to be merely disagreed with, but in fact indicates terrible things about your ("your" here will apply, varyingly, to every poster participating, reacting to, and not participating to or reacting to) intelligence, moral character, moral worth, and that of your ancestors, any descendants, and any related or non-related people who may have at any time had or have the possibility of having at some point in the future, a favorable opinion of you.

[Doomrider]

The amount of exaggeration and jumping to conclusions that no one's even talking about never ceases to astound me in these kinds of threads. You don't even have to bring up things to talk about to have people fill your mouth with words you never even uttered! That's like a super power in and of itself 🤣. 

[Jimmy]

A lot to unpack here.

 

First of all - while I do appreciate the positive sentiment communicated by many players of this thread, some people have been a bit overzealous on both sides of the debate here. Please remember to remain respectful towards each other - everyone is allowed to have an opinion, and they shouldn't be attacked for it.

 

Now, on to the topic at hand. The answer, in short, is "we're getting there". We should break this down into a few things though - there's a difference between engagement, transparency, and following community direction.

 

Engagement

We do our best to engage as much as is practical, but time is always the enemy. As has been pointed out countless times in this thread already, we're all volunteers working with limited time. Any time we spend communicating is time that could've been spent working on something else, so we have to strike a balance. This is even a struggle internally, trying to find time to keep everyone update whilst also actually working on stuff can be difficult.

 

Overall, though, I do honestly feel like we are doing a pretty good job as far as community engagement goes, and I do welcome any specific feedback or suggestions on how we could improve in this area (beyond just "more", because, obviously, that costs time we simply don't have).

 

Transparency

This is a tougher one. From a development standpoint, it frequently just isn't worth the time to be open about stuff that's early / experimental - the recent Dark Melee changes being a prime example. A quote from another thread to add some context:

On 3/1/2020 at 8:35 PM, Jimmy said:

This is the reality of an actual beta server. It isn't what you're used to seeing for basically any normal game. During live, changes did not reach the test server until they had been thoroughly tested internally.

 

We, however, do not have internal testers. The beta server is currently one of the first layers of testing that these changes go through. This is the same process that would normally happen internally with any development team - changes happen thick and fast. Plans are changed. Resources are shifted. But you, the player, are usually shielded from this process because those teams can afford to pay people to test. We obviously cannot do that 🙂

 

To be blunt: If something isn't good enough, we kill it. We don't push everything to live just because time has been spent on it. That's how you end up with, well... a mess.

The amount of frustration around this one change being shelved was proof enough that being fully transparent when it comes to early development just isn't practical. Paragon had a closed beta server for a reason, and even then the changes pushed to that server had already been through rigorous internal testing. We don't have the capacity for anything remotely close to that.

 

We really do need to be able to test early and experimental stuff with players, but in order for that to happen the community needs to come to terms with reality of game development: Most things don't make the cut.

 

From an organizational standpoint, the talks with NC are obviously the elephant in the room here. We're as transparent as we're able to be, and obviously there's a strong desire to dial that transparency up as soon as we're able to.

 

Following Community Direction

We absolutely value all the feedback and suggestions we get, and we do go out of our way to seek out feedback on specific topics, but at the end of the day it's a volunteer development team, and the individual volunteers will spend their free time on things they want to spend their time on. Generally those things are going to line up with community requests, but it won't always be what you want. 

 

And finally...

4 hours ago, MetaVileTerror said:

However:  I think that one of their next "hires" should be an individual (or small team) with publisher/marketing experience AND (crucially) who is not interested in pursuing "Best Practices" established solely for commercial consumer games.  Someone who works/worked in the industry, and sees how terrible the working conditions and culture are in a lot of places, and wants to actively provide their experienced services as a volunteer in a capacity that will help mitigate that widespread industry toxicity.  Someone who is willing to explore new or retired methodologies for community engagement to see what works best in this volunteer environment.

Believe me when I say experience isn't the problem here. Speaking as someone who works (in my day job) in a team that flagrantly disregards what large publishers see as "best practices" there's a balance to be struck between professionalism and humanity and I do think we're hitting quite close to sweet spot already - but we are being hindered quite heavily by the aforementioned problems (lack of time and large mammals in the room).

 

Where we can improve here is in training more volunteers to help fill in this role, which is something we hope to begin doing in the future.

[VileTerror]

Thanks for the information and assurances, Jimmy.  I look forward to the day when we can peel back the hood and see it all laid out.

[VileTerror]

Sorry to double-post, but this is rather a different thought than the last one I made.

Please don't get discouraged with how this latest bit of community reaction when with regard to Dark Melee.  As mentioned in another thread, I think it's an ideal learning opportunity.  Frankly, despite some players' reactions to it, I really do think that the experimental development on a player-accessible Test Shard is ideal!  While dedicating a whole Shard to just experimental changes might be more effort than its worth, I think "Experimentation Events" might be a good thing to explore in the future, kind of like the Stress Test Events which happened a few weeks back.

[Troo]

9 hours ago, Septipheran said:

I want to start this post by saying how incredibly appreciative I am of the Homecoming team for their amazing efforts here. I've been here since the day Torchbearer went up, and I've played just about every day since. It's an absolute pleasure to be able to play the game again, particularly with such a large portion of the community intact. 

Spoiler

 

I guess the reason that I wanted to start this thread is to get a little clarity on the development philosophy. One of the biggest draws to City of Heroes for a lot of players is the sense of nostalgia. Many of us couldn't wait to get back on our Super Strength guys and go to town, and boy did we ever. I think it's very noble that the Homecoming team has stated clearly that the plan is for this to be a non-profit, community run server. I think that's an absolutely fantastic approach to follow, and one that I've happily donated to support multiple times. 

 

The issue that I'm seeing here is that some of the development efforts don't always seem to be aligned with that goal, and I'd like to share some examples of what exactly I mean by that. I'm willing to bet that if a community poll were taken on whether we'd like the bug (which persisted throughout the majority of the retail game) with Super Strength's rage crash being ignored when double-stacked, the vast majority of the community would've voted for it to be left alone. Similarly, I'm struggling to understand why another pure support set is being developed. We are already very limited in our options of viable end game support sets- It's pretty much Cold Domination or Radiation 90% of the time. Without a meaningful combination of -regen and -res, any new support set is ultimately going to be meaningless to the majority of endgame players. I would hate to see efforts of the development team go to waste, as I'm sure we would all love to have some viable new powersets to min/max and be able to enjoy past level 50. 

 

I think something that might be helpful is to move to a voting system of, "Hey guys, this is a community server. You're running the show. Do you want us to alter Super Strength? Do you want a new pure support set?" I know that we are given ample opportunity to provide feedback to changes on beta, but I think there's a real possibility that many of us don't engage in those conversations because we're not interested in what is being presented. I think there's a real possibility that many of us simply want to play City of Heroes. We don't want to have to worry about shelving alts because they got hit with the nerf hammer. 

 

 

I think this is a good opportunity to start a community dialogue about how you'd like to see development approached as members of the community, and I'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts. 

Participation = A voice

 

Beyond that, maybe we should reset some expectations related to playing an essentially free game, supported by a volunteer team, which has clearly stated goals.

 

"I feel I need to chip in here and drop a quote from our open letter to the community that was posted back in May last year. A distant memory now, but it still holds:" @Jimmy Feb 7th

 

Staying up to date is our responsibility. These are good to keep tabs on:

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/forum/59-finances-donations/

 

Also: https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/15137-how-you-can-help-homecoming/

 

If you didn't see the link to the Open Letter to the Community in Jimmy's quote above:

 

Edit: Oops looks like Jimmy posted since I started this reply.. Sorry.

 

Edited March 5, 2020 by Troo

[Obus Form]

53 minutes ago, Troo said:

Participation = A voice

 

Beyond that, maybe we should reset some expectations related to playing an essentially free game, supported by a volunteer team, which has clearly stated goals.

 

"I feel I need to chip in here and drop a quote from our open letter to the community that was posted back in May last year. A distant memory now, but it still holds:" @Jimmy Feb 7th

 

Staying up to date is our responsibility. These are good to keep tabs on:

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/forum/59-finances-donations/

 

Also: https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/15137-how-you-can-help-homecoming/

 

If you didn't see the link to the Open Letter to the Community in Jimmy's quote above:

 

Edit: Oops looks like Jimmy posted since I started this reply.. Sorry.

 

Look what you've done @Troo!!!

[EmperorSteele]

I kinda find myself agreeing with both "sides" here. On one hand, polling the playerbase for every change and idea will mean that nothing ever gets done. Sometimes devs just have to bite the bullet and push out some content. Also, Leandro himself stated that he tried his best to please his players back on SCoRE, and you know what happened? They played with their new shiny for a week or two, then left. Giving people what they "want" only makes them bored, ironically enough.

On the other hand, the new electric support set doesn't really do it for me, and based on the feedback I've seen, a lot of other people aren't super thrilled with it, either. Which is a shame, because the team has clearly spent time and care on it, and the ideas all sound good on paper. And like the OP, I wonder if some of this could have been mitigated with the devs asking something like "What do YOU want to see in a new support set?" and maybe found that more of a hybrid set would have been a more popular approach. Sure, the answers would have been all over the map... some would have been off-topic or unhelpful ("Port Illu to Dominators!" "Buff Trick Arrow instead!"), but I think overall a consensus could have been reached before the coding started. Or maybe I'm being too optimistic, who knows?

[VileTerror]

Well, call me the odd one out, but I'm pretty happy with Electrical Affinity.  It's rather click-heavy, and could use a little more time in the oven, but it's a welcome addition in my books!

 

Call me less crazy, but if long-term retention is the plan, I still suggest putting a little more focus on roleplayers and social quality of life features.  Gamers will come and go as they please; typically when they personally "beat" the game.  

Roleplayers tend to hunker down and make homes for themselves, and generally only leave when one of three things happens:  

- A better home shows up that they can convince their friends to follow them to.  

- A drama storm pushes them out.  

- Real life gets in the way.

All of which are generally not the game developers' fault.

[Doc_Scorpion]

3 hours ago, Jimmy said:

The amount of frustration around this one change being shelved was proof enough that being fully transparent when it comes to early development just isn't practical. Paragon had a closed beta server for a reason, and even then the changes pushed to that server had already been through rigorous internal testing. We don't have the capacity for anything remotely close to that.

 

We really do need to be able to test early and experimental stuff with players, but in order for that to happen the community needs to come to terms with reality of game development: Most things don't make the cut.

No offense intended...  Though I've only been playing since September, that's the first time (the latter part of the quote) this has been made clear.

The serious testers (Sturgeon's law always applies) can adapt to anything that we know is expected of us.  And when it came to the Dark Melee changes, AFAIK nobody knew (or clearly understood) that it was any different from the Tank/Brute changes.  It was on the Beta server after all.

Though I hate to even suggest adding workload, I'm with @VileTerror...  Maybe experimental/alpha content needs to be somehow more clearly delineated as being separate/different from beta content. 

Rather than an event, maybe in the title of the Focused Feedback thread?

[DR_Mechano]

6 hours ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

No offense intended...  Though I've only been playing since September, that's the first time (the latter part of the quote) this has been made clear.

The serious testers (Sturgeon's law always applies) can adapt to anything that we know is expected of us.  And when it came to the Dark Melee changes, AFAIK nobody knew (or clearly understood) that it was any different from the Tank/Brute changes.  It was on the Beta server after all.

Though I hate to even suggest adding workload, I'm with @VileTerror...  Maybe experimental/alpha content needs to be somehow more clearly delineated as being separate/different from beta content. 

Rather than an event, maybe in the title of the Focused Feedback thread?

They do mark some changes as 'experimental'. I think what happened with Dark Melee was they thought it would be a simple change without much far reaching problems so didn't mark it as experimental and the actual ramifications of the changes kind of blindsided them. Thus why it was pulled because, as they said, they don't have the time to invest in actually going in to depth with the Dark Melee changes because they've got 1 completely new powerset that at test release was basically terrible and STILL needs a lot of work on it to bring it up to par.

 

The IO sets they introduced have been through numerous changes. One I didn't agree with (why change Bombardment from +5% recharge and +3.75% ranged...most other sets in the Targeted AoE category are either mediocre (positron's blast), complete garbage (everything not a purple or Winter IO) or stupidly expensive (Purple and Winter IO sets) which has now resulted in TWO new targeted AoE sets.

 

There is one game that I note does things where it has two dedicated testing servers. World of Tanks. It has the PTR or Public Test Region which is your traditional beta testing server. For larger game changes where the devs aren't sure how things will go but they're 'ideas' you have the 'Sandbox' test server and the devs make it VERY clear that not everything on the sandbox test server will ever make it to live. However that is a lot of work for a small dev team compared to World of Tanks which is the 7th highest grossing game on PC (lotta whales in the game and massively popular since apart from Armored Warfare, nobody offers Arcade tank battling action (Warthunder is closer to simulation than Arcade even in its Arcade mode)).

Edited March 5, 2020 by DR_Mechano

[Blackfeather]

9 hours ago, VileTerror said:

Well, call me the odd one out, but I'm pretty happy with Electrical Affinity.  It's rather click-heavy, and could use a little more time in the oven, but it's a welcome addition in my books!

 

Call me less crazy, but if long-term retention is the plan, I still suggest putting a little more focus on roleplayers and social quality of life features.  Gamers will come and go as they please; typically when they personally "beat" the game.  

Roleplayers tend to hunker down and make homes for themselves, and generally only leave when one of three things happens:  

- A better home shows up that they can convince their friends to follow them to.  

- A drama storm pushes them out.  

- Real life gets in the way.

All of which are generally not the game developers' fault.

Personal bases would definitely be pretty awesome, along with more emote animations available for characters, etc.

[Raught19]

I think the way they are handling it right now is perfect. They ask for feedback, they make polls when needed. I think that's more than enough. They care more about the quality of the game than just cheap tricks. This is why Homecoming is popular. It's as close to a professional server as we can get. 

 

Also the super strength thing was a bug. It should be fixed, like a bug. Just because it benefits you doesnt mean it should still exist.

[golstat2003]

17 hours ago, ScarySai said:

Hire this man, HC.

 

As an aside, I really don't understand the hostility and misrepresentation in the replies to this thread. It's completely unwarranted, and frankly a pathetic showing from such an otherwise great community.

That's fine. I still BROADLY disagree with the sentiment and any idea of a roadmap of any sort is a terrible one for the reasons already stated by various people in this thread. The forums should NOT be running the show. And there should NOT be a vote on what's worked on next.

 

I think they have been plenty transparent.

[ScarySai]

35 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

That's fine. I still BROADLY disagree with the sentiment and any idea of a roadmap of any sort is a terrible one for the reasons already stated by various people in this thread. The forums should NOT be running the show. And there should NOT be a vote on what's worked on next.

 

I think they have been plenty transparent.

I don't mind that stance at all, I took great issue with the hostilities earlier in the thread more than anything.

 

Edit: To clarify, I still disagree, but don't really see a point in arguing, essentially.

Edited March 5, 2020 by ScarySai