A Message to the Devs and Players

[[CW]Aresye]

Coolant doesn't work like that. It cools based on the number of heatsinks on the mech, the more you have the more its able to cool (heat is evenly distributed through all the heatsinks). As for heating in general, it works just fine. If you spend the weight on heatsinks, then you get the benefit. If you don't then abusable equipment like MASC will kick you in the ass if you try to use it all the time. Its a game about trade offs, deal with it.

I will not start the week off with yet another aerospace rant topic.
 
The Shiva "E" will stay as it is.  It has the tonnage for its configuration and can be countered by other assets.  If the sole reason this is being forwarded as a problem is due to it appearing early in games due to C-Bill banking abuse, then know that we already have a fix in progress, to be deployed within the next few weeks after internal testing.  We have already stated this in numerous places on these forums and creating yet another thread about it does not serve a useful purpose.
 
Locked.

I am not usually the one to bring up topics such as this, but I feel this needs to be said.  The above two posts were kind of what set me over based on the player/dev relationship the past few weeks.

Devs:
You've been doing a great job cranking out the updates the past month, and putting up with a lot of frustration on the forums (aero balance, mouse inertia, etc), and I am quite happy with the more stern approach to criticism.

Players:
Still doing a great job at reporting bugs, submitting crash logs, etc.  So far with every release MWLL is more stable and refined than before.  Don't let up.  A lot of recent ideas and suggestions have been well thought out, and not the over-the-top, nearly impossible kind.

So while each side is contributing to the mod's success, I've been noticing a recent trend of increased tension between the players, and the devs.

Yes, we've had a rough few weeks.  Some updates didn't please everyone, ASF continues to be debated, and so on.  The problem, is that because of these arguments, and a general lack of respect towards the devs by a certain few, they have now taken a more stern approach to locking threads, and are less receiving of the community's suggestions.

Its a game about trade offs, deal with it.

^^^This

This was a response directed towards a person with a legitimate suggestion.  Not to mention the other players who have put in their own suggestions for an aspect of the game that we (the player base) have concluded is broken.  If a dev is going to usurp our suggestions to change something in order to balance gameplay, then what is our point as beta testers to begin with?  Coming from a dev, this comment was completely out of line.

However, we brought it upon ourselves.  As this mod's players, we need to remember that we are still beta testers for a mod that isn't finished.  There will be bumps in the road along the way, balance changes will always frustrate a few, and the Crysis engine can only do so much regarding what we want to see.  We need to take a step back and think about how long our devs have been working on this project, and how much work they've put into it.  They certainly deserve respect for that, and when you come along acting like a 12 y/o with a, "gimme, gimme, gimme now!" type attitude, it's basically insulting the devs, and they do take it to heart, which shuts them off from the community.  Less likely to listen to reasonable players with good suggestions.

Down the line, this can only end badly.  Everybody needs to take a few minutes to relax, and realize we are all on the same team, and we need to work together as a team to make this the best mod ever.

[Bill]

All I can say is this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZjAantupsA

[xInVicTuSx]

Bleh, I still have hope that my more carefully thought out threads are read even if the devs don't ever respond to my original post.
Just gotta have some faith when you're posting suggestions. 

Usually I think they respond to two kinds of threads, either things that are brought up that they so happened to have already dealt with or are in the process of dealing with now, or a things that they are just tired of hearing about. I just hope they read some observations on the current state of balance and funness of play and go "hmmmm".

[Artemis Dragmire]

I'll take this opportunity to say this on the matter.

Bitching, balancing, and bugs aside, this FREE MOD is better than a lot of full fledged $60 games I have played recently, and in some cases, has better balancing, and less bugs than even some mainstream titles.

And it's only in beta.

Things will change and improve, but all things considered, the devs have done a fantastic job so far!

[Draekros]

I agree Artemis. Things are definitely on the up and can only get better 

[~SJ~Zathrus]

Yes I have to agree that this mod is amazing and the recent updates have been very positive.
The Devs have created something special that I (and many others) are enjoying daily. 


 

[Arghy]

Yes i agree aeros can go fapp themselves seriously 4 aeros with fire bombs and Tbolts goddamn LANDING ON POINTS AND CAPPING THEM. I'm relaly surprise you guys managed to get LAMs in the game!

If you see the above i dont know how you could post without emotion so theres going to constantly be emotion in either sides posts.

[[CW]Aresye]

I don't deny the devs have been doing a great job.  Just pointing out that because of the few people who choose nothing but criticize the dev's work, they are hurting us in the long run, because the devs seem less inclined to listen to our complaints when they have to sift through a bunch of unappreciative players.

For example, the reason why I quoted KingLeer, is because my complaint was not necessarily against the Shiva itself, but more towards the fact that because it's relatively inexpensive, it's much easier to abuse the banking system and dominate both the air and ground early on.  I even mentioned how I searched the forums for answers to the Shiva E, future plans (higher cost/different loadout?), and came up with nothing, but since KingLeer has been dealing with anti-asf threads the entire week, I just simply got my thread locked, with no links or anything to find out what they're doing regarding banking.

Am I not the only one who sees a direct correlation between the number of complaint threads, and how accepting the devs are regarding our suggestions, or am I just going crazy?

[LordHack]

When I used to get after my kids, or now my grandkids, and say "I'm not mad, I'm just.... disappointed..."

I think that's about where the devs are mentally right now with all the BS posts

[KingLeerUK]

This is the short, "I'm going to bed in 5 minutes" response I can give now, maybe more tomorrow:
 
Right now we do not have a dedicated (active) community manager for the project.  This used to be AoP but he has been absent for some time now due to some personal issues.  As a result, the community has had more direct exposure to our development team, in particular the Project Directors.  As a result you are exposed directly to some of our opinions and are also subject to certain instances where we feel compelled to step in an correct a false understanding.  In my opinion, the current "rant level" has passed Orange and is well on it's way to Red.  Many of the topics that are the favourite go-tos (aerospace, heat) have been discussed extensively in the past and have continued to evolve with the rest of the project.  Anyone claiming that we currently have the same (or worse) aerospace balance as 0.2.0 or 0.3.2 needs to have their head checked, but I digress.
 
What I have continually asked for from the community is to achieve some base level understanding that:
 - this project is under constant development,
 - things will change,
 - things will sometimes get broken before they get fixed,
 - we have as much to do in front of us as we do behind us (if not more),
 - yes, we actually do have an overall plan that guides us,
 - yes, we do look at suggestions, but some of them don't work with our plan,
 - others ideas are just pants on head retarded and don't agree with our overall design (I'm sorry, but this is tough love),
 - we may not always be right, but the mistakes are ours to make and learn from,
 - we determine what needs to be changed or added and when.
 
Finally, the community is free to disagree with our decisions or feel challenged to understand and accept them, however I will not tolerate our team being disrespected or being told "you're doing it wrong, do it this way" because those that tend to voice such opinions don't have the same perspective or understanding of the project.  We aren't making MechWarrior IV: Redux, we aren't making CBT in pretty clothes, we are making our own game and it is damned fun.  Accepting this simple fact would go a long way towards improving many players' enjoyment of the game.
 
We have come this far and been very successful based on our own merits and decisions.  We have won Mod of the Year once, and an honourable mention again (because we weren't eligible to win it twice).  I am not only extremely proud of this achievement and the team behind it, but feel it gives us more than enough currency to continue to justify our choices and direction.
 
Thank you and goodnight.

[Defender]

[[CW]Aresye]

Finally, the community is free to disagree with our decisions or feel challenged to understand and accept them, however I will not tolerate our team being disrespected or being told "you're doing it wrong, do it this way" because those that tend to voice such opinions don't have the same perspective or understanding of the project.

Couldn't agree with you more.  I hope my Shiva E topic didn't fall into that category.

[Artemis Dragmire]

Finally, the community is free to disagree with our decisions or feel challenged to understand and accept them, however I will not tolerate our team being disrespected or being told "you're doing it wrong, do it this way" because those that tend to voice such opinions don't have the same perspective or understanding of the project.

Couldn't agree with you more.  I hope my Shiva E topic didn't fall into that category.

I think they were just tired of anything and everything with the word Aerospace in it being posted at that point, rather than any particular dislike for you or your thread or it's ideas. I can't blame them tbh. (Have been lurking around for far longer than I've been posting, pretty much since I started playing).

[VictorMorson]

Honestly, I'm utterly glad the devs take this approach.  There's a very small handful of issues I'd really like to hear their thoughts on with fingers crossed, but ultimately I never, ever want the community dictating anything in this mod.  Suggestions are great - hell, I put up enough of them (trying to restrain myself to reasonably small things specifically because I know they have plenty of big things on their plate) but I fully, 100% realize that ideas are a dime of dozen.  In particular from non-devs.  I always shake my head and face palm when I hear someone has a "great game idea" and thinks it's worth anything, at all.

I'm going to make a broad statement here, because it's not directed at anyone specific and even includes myself:  But a community group as a whole are always horrendously terrible.  Some worse than others, true, but believe me if the community starts getting weight nothing good comes from it.  Someone will always insist something is overpowered, and there will always be a chorus to join in, just because they don't know how to counter it.  In every single game.  If devs start actually listening to that feedback, you know what happens?  Patch overpowered musical chairs.  If anyone played Planetside in it's prime, you'll know precisely what I mean.

The only way I will ever even consider suggesting something is overpowered is if I can get ridiculous levels of damage/KDR with it, in any game, and I've worked on a bunch.  You'll see me make a LL OP thread when I can effortlessly get 10:0 KDR every single match with an item.  If the "overpowered" item users are 3rd place and down every map, you know what that says to me?  It's not overpowered.

Now onto something I've been wanting to say, but haven't found the right moment to say until now.  This thread seems to be that moment.

What I'm going to say something that might be a bit controversial and I'm sure might not win friends, but frankly:  This community has a large selection of members I can only describe as "pussified."  I don't know why, since there has always been a vocal majority in past MechWarrior games like this, but I'd dare say there's way more of it here.  Namely, people who think everyone who does not play the game their way is wrong, and the game should be altered to play it their way.  Legging, pop-tarting, shooting in and out of bases, sharing money, using NARC, using AECM to counter NARC, using specific vehicles - or using vehicles at all, using specific weapons, ejecting, ramming.. I hear non-stop complaining about many of these things from a surprising percentage of people.  Some of these things, in fact, may need tweaking and I'm not defending as perfect systems and realize are a work in progress by the devs.

However, what really brought this to a head in my mind is when I made a thread about including unique naming IDs for targets to help coordinate team firing; I am not talking about that here to re-suggest it, or defend the idea, or ask for it to be put in.  It was just a suggestion and any future action or inaction is 100% with the devs hands.  I'm only mentioning it because an overwhelming number of people got scared that if they could be uniquely identified, via ID # or name, that people might start "hunting them" outside of the original intent.

Trying to kill you, for being successful in an internet simulation game?  The horror.  Seriously though, the fact that so many people chimed in for fear of being "hunted" - even by anonymous ID #s - as if it meant they could be struck down at will (despite the fact trying to target someone specifically rather than the best target option is a horrible tactic) kind of makes me do a double take.  Has the community really gotten that, for lack of a better word, soft?  Back in the last league, getting a reputation with your enemies so badly that they'd try to prime you was a badge of pride, not something to be scared about.  This is just one example of dozens, where a good chunk of the vocal community on these forums seems to base every single balance suggestion or anti-suggestion around the fact they honestly need to man up and deal with it. 

To that end, again, I am incredibly glad and supportive of the devs making executive decisions that may, in fact, completely go against the wishes of the vocal aspect of the community since they seem to have a very good handle on what makes for a good game and a solid understanding of listening to, but not acting on, feedback re-actively.  I've seen a number of professional studios who didn't learn that lesson until it hit them the hard way, so the fact a non-profit group of talented people have managed to get such a grip on it on their first alpha project is highly commendable.

I leave you now with a video that describes precisely how public chat sounds during way too many games:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAHTKyVJv8k

[Frostiken]

However, what really brought this to a head in my mind is when I made a thread about including unique naming IDs for targets to help coordinate team firing; I am not talking about that here to re-suggest it, or defend the idea, or ask for it to be put in.  It was just a suggestion and any future action or inaction is 100% with the devs hands.  I'm only mentioning it because an overwhelming number of people got scared that if they could be uniquely identified, via ID # or name, that people might start "hunting them" outside of the original intent.

Trying to kill you, for being successful in an internet simulation game?  The horror.  Seriously though, the fact that so many people chimed in for fear of being "hunted" - even by anonymous ID #s - as if it meant they could be struck down at will (despite the fact trying to target someone specifically rather than the best target option is a horrible tactic) kind of makes me do a double take.  Has the community really gotten that, for lack of a better word, soft?  Back in the last league, getting a reputation with your enemies so badly that they'd try to prime you was a badge of pride, not something to be scared about.  This is just one example of dozens, where a good chunk of the vocal community on these forums seems to base every single balance suggestion or anti-suggestion around the fact they honestly need to man up and deal with it.

When people get frustrated, arguments turn violent quickly. Everyone's frustration level varies, but for me, it's when, in a thread, I've made a specific point as clear as I could possibly make it, and yet it seems that the recipient of this point is denser than lead and still does not "get it".

Victor's example is a great case of that, because nobody was saying anything of the sort. I was the one who pushed to get enemy names removed, because of metagaming, not because of a fear of people hunting me.

There are two sides to any argument - my side and the wrong side - okay well there's a handful of sides, but let me try to explain this, in this case there's either 'yes names' or 'no names'. My argument against names is based on the extremely abusable metagaming mechanic - seeing a player named 'Mechwarrior' stomping towards you, in whatever asset, probably isn't going to be a huge threat, whereas seeing ~SJ~MausGR over it would give you a completely different reaction. Likewise, depending on the names, you can know entirely how a player will perform, down to what asset they prefer and take steps to counter it - based on nothing more than a name.

Now, whether people don't want names because they're scared of people hunting THEM, or because they don't like the metagaming, it's irrelevant - the point is, names shouldn't be in because of "__________________". Pick the best argument against it and start there, not making offhand complainy posts in a karma-farming thread. How exactly does telling people to 'man up' help anything?