SE IV future

[Mylon]

Is what I don't understand is that ships with a destoryed MC can't do much of anything in combat anyway. So if you hit it with a computer virus you still take it out of action. The former converting of the ship with an AS seemed sort of like an added bonus. Why complain about the AS conVersion when the computer virus still disables the ship?

[geoschmo]

I think the main reason the PPB was never changed is that no consensus could ever be reached even among those that believe it needs fixed. I am sure Malfador got plenty of suggestions, but everybody has a different one. And there are plenty of people, myself included, that don't even buy into the whole "fact" that they are unbalanced to begin with. I am not trying to start another discussion about all that or anything, I think we did that particular one to death. Just pointing out that there are other reasons besides lack of time for things not to be changed.

Geoschmo

[ October 17, 2002, 00:34: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[spoon]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
The main reason the PPB was never changed is that no consensus could ever be reached even among those that believe it needs fixed. I am sure Malfador got plenty of suggestions, but everybody has a different one. And there are plenty of people, myself included, that don't even buy into the whole "fact" that they are unbalanced to begin with. I am not trying to start another discussion about all that or anything, I think we did that particular one to death. Just pointing out that there are other reasons besides lack of time for things not to be changed.

The lack of concensus is exactly why MM needs to head the effort of game balance. Why would you want to play a mod that goes against your erroneous conclusion that PPBs don't need balancing? (hehe! resist the bait!)

I want to use torpedos in a competitive game! I want to build those terraforming facilities! A few small changes here and there. That's all I ask.

-Spoon

[Taera]

Then what it takes is to start a topic which would be open for, say, two weeks and collect all the things people want tweaked. Then in the next two weeks twenty of them would be chosen as the top nuber of people mentioning them and a vote be held for people to choose 10 out of 20. And the final 10 would be e-mailed to MM.

EDIT: Double wording

[ October 17, 2002, 00:53: Message edited by: Taera ]

[geoschmo]

It's been done Taera. Several times. Some of the changes in recent patches were results of such brainstorming sessions. In other cases the results were never sent is as far as anyone knows. But taking a poll is not the same as reaching a consensus.

Geoschmo

[Taera]

What i ment was opening a topic strictly moderated by local Moderators to delete all topics which have anything else but ideas. This way it could stay clean, i guess. But i can see your point. Ohwell.

[dumbluck]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Dumbluck, I think more clearly people's impressions of the patch changes (I won't even call them fixes anymore) are reflected in their feelings about whether or not there was a problem. For example you make the case the OA changes are balanced and have been asked for for a long time. By contrast you seem to imply that the AS change was some sort of unilateral plan by Malfador and infer that you haven't heard much call for this change.

I am not sure if that's what you are saying, but if it is I can tell you that is just not the case. The AS has been complained about just as often, and for just as long as the OA one. Human nature however is that we tend to minimize or forget alltogether arguments that run counter to our own established perceptions.

I think your (and others) proposed final solution does make sense however. If a ship were built with MC and crew quarters (I would prefer bridge, but I guess it doesn't really matter) then the AS should probably be able to convert it once the MC is destroyed.

Geoschmo

After re-reading my post, I can see how you read in that I thought the AS changes was "some sort of unilateral plan by Malfador and infer that you haven't heard much call for this change." I do not think that. I know that the AS issue has been around for a long time as well. I was simply stating that I think (hope) that this is just MM's first step in re-balancing the AS. Similar to the OA's 2 step fix (not accumulating regen points before hit, and all OA fixed after combat).

The way I see it, MM could do 2 things to finish the AS.
1. (my favorite) is the boolean test stated previously.
2. Make the MC and Crew Q/Life S/Bridge incompatble (ie. you can only mount one or the other) This way, a Crewed ship isn't immune from the AS.

Just my overpriced $0.02.

PS. Did anyone find out if the OA will regen after combat if all of it was destroyed in combat?

[ October 17, 2002, 10:10: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[Taera]

Geo: if it is to be done it should be considered with the Moderators because i know what can become of "what to balance" mod.

But on the other hand, i agree with you. I can live with current weapons actually. PPB can be changed a little and so are the crystal shards, but thats not a major issue i presume.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Taera:
What i ment was opening a topic strictly moderated by local Moderators to delete all topics which have anything else but ideas. This way it could stay clean, i guess. But i can see your point. Ohwell.

I wasn't trying to say noone should do that. It can't hurt. I was just pointing out that it had pretty much been done a couple times already and it didn't result in all these changes.

Originally posted by dumbluck:
The way I see it, MM could do 2 things to finish the AS.
2. Make the MC and Crew Q/Life S/Bridge incompatble (ie. you can only mount one or the other) This way, a Crewed ship isn't immune from the AS.

From a game play perspective this would be good. You would probably get some complaints from a realism perspective though. I would love to see this idea expanded on. We have suggested to Malfador some way to have techs that are prevented from being on the same ship, not just these two. If he could add it as some sort of ability then we could mod it in ourself wherever we want.

Originally posted by dumbluck:PS. Did anyone find out if the OA will regen after combat if all of it was destroyed in combat?

It does not. But it can be modded to do so.

Originally posted by spoon:
The lack of concensus is exactly why MM needs to head the effort of game balance. Why would you want to play a mod that goes against your erroneous conclusion that PPBs don't need balancing? (hehe! resist the bait!)

I want to use torpedos in a competitive game! I want to build those terraforming facilities! A few small changes here and there. That's all I ask.

-Spoon

Why should Malfador head the effort to fix the game balance when we can't even convince him the game is unbalanced? A lot of us would prefer he not even waste time making data file changes and concentrate on hard code changes only, and you want him to spend time moderating a "blue-ribbon commision" on game balance issues?

The point is that those are things you can change. And yes Malfador could change them too, but no matter what he changes them to not everybody will be happy with them, so some of these things it's like, why bother? Of course the same could be said about hard code changes I suppose, but at least in those areas it's not like we can change those ourselves if we don't like them.

Obviously if there were some area that was clearly out of whack, and there was an pbvious change to fix it that didn't unbalance something else, I would be all for him changing that. And he has done so in the past. Missles and PDC are a good example.

But since there is no consensus on these things, and everybody can easily change them on their own, there is no real incentive for Malfador to change them.

I can't tell you the number of people that have come out on this forum with grand ideas for a "Game Balance mod", and cited all these wonderful examples of what's wrong with the game and what they were going to do to fix it. I even decided at one point to do so with my "Art of War mod". And to date I have seen none advertised as being complete, including my own. Many mods have changes to these areas, but they are all just parts of a mod for some other purpose, not really a strict "Balance Mod".

So one of two things is the case here. Either it's harder than people think to make all these changes in the stock data files (A couple of hours? ) or once people got in and started making changes and playtesting they realized the stock game isn't all that unbalanced to begin with. In my case I can tell you it was a little of both.

Not wanting to play mods is no excuse at all. Modpicker makes it a breeze, and I can even set them up on PBW for multiplayer play, and do so all the time. I think people would love to play a mod that was complete. TDM gets played a LOT. But a lot of people only have so much time to play, so they don't want to be bothered playing a mod that is only half done, or doesn't really do any better than the stock game.

Geoschmo