Nguruthos IX
PEN 15 CLUB
1663
   |
Posted - 2013.09.12 20:01:00 -
[1] - Quote
Weapon balance as it pertains to adjusting values should be constant and frequent updates.
Weapon balance as it pertains to changing core mechanics of how the weapon functions, obviously would have to go through Sony QA and be included in monthly patches.
But waiting a month for weapon balances, as we've been doing, and then a month to fix the mistakes after that is not conductive to finding a good spot for balance quickly enough.
Imagine two time scales where 10 changes are made, each subsequent from realizations and feedback of the previous:
In other words both situations lead to the conclusion of "Arbitrary point of Balanced", using the exact same alterations and evaluations along the way.
A: (change 1, day 1),
(change 2, month 2),
(change 3, month 3)
(change 4, month 4)
etc..
"Arbitrary point of Balanced", concluded 6 months later
B: (change 1, day 1),
(change 2, day 5),
(change 3, day 15),
(change 4, day 16 [FLAYLOCK LOL])
(change 4, day 25)
etc.
"Arbitrary point of Balanced", concluded anywhere from 1-2 months)
So obviously the exact same arbitrary point of balance is achieved at a staggeringly different rate, with much less frustration and better pleased player base by just tweaking ranges/dps/rof more commonly that once a month.
Correct me if I'm wrong but the infrastructure is there to do this, only the desire from CCP to adhere to such a program is lacking.
TL;DR
totally unnecessary demonstration of obvious fact that weapon balance needs to be handled quicker.
Why is it not? There have already been some major situations that needed fixed faster, and the future is bound to have more. |
Nguruthos IX
PEN 15 CLUB
1663
|
Posted - 2013.09.12 20:57:00 -
[2] - Quote
Django Quik wrote:You know why they can't do it quicker than 1 month intervals? It's because they have to gather data and analyse it and this takes time. Forum feedback can be useful but it should never be used in isolation because it is highly subjective and only represents a tiny fraction of the playerbase.
Say you need 2 weeks of data to get a decent overall picture of how a weapon is balancing against others, then you need a few days to do preliminary analysis, another few days adequately report the results internally and then a week to interally make the changes and test them before deployment - that's pretty much a month. And yes, you'd need a couple of weeks of data.
You didn't need feedback to know the AR was OP or flaylock was broken
I'm saying stuff like that, with a moment of play-testing can be addressed much quicker.
use intuition first, then gather feedback when you think things might be closer to OK.
streamlines the process |