Feedback about how TWI communicates with us and the consequences for the future of KF

[Willis]

Thank you for posting this, polomi. This thread addresses many of my main concerns with the game at the moment. I agree 100% with you and everyone else on this thread that game balance has been handled wrong and TW doesn't seem to care. This has driven me and many other people to abandon the game.

It's good to see Yoshiro acknowledge this as an issue, and I'm very interested to see your solution to this issue. I think ramndude's suggestion of doing betas with balance tweaks should have been the norm since the start of EA.

I have also lost much of the hope I had for this game to have the proper balance and fun gameplay mechanics that hooked me to KF1 (albeit not the perfect example, but at least it's at a better state than KF2). Although I feel it will be fruitless, I'm sharing my thoughts just in case; IMO, the solution TW comes up with to help balance the game with the community should:

• Not be half-assed or done because some guys on the forum are requesting it. It should reflect the commitment TW has to take the players feedback into account towards balancing the game, and making it better (which is also a great way to disprove the current discourse that KF2 is now a cash-grab).
• Prioritize balancing around high level of play. Because as polomi mentioned, it has the greatest amount of intricacies and variables. Easier difficulties should easily adjust since the mechanics are simpler.
• Be maintained as long as it needs to, until TW and the community are satisfied (granted, not everyone will always agree on everything). What I would like to see is TW following through and being committed to this for as long as it's necessary.

 

[Dr.Phibes]

Meanwhile, other companies like Keen Software House (they made Space Engineers) make a video every week, showing what they have been working on.

Pretty OT, but you're talking about the company that made one of the worst games I've personally played (Miner Wars 2081) and then abandoned the development of that project to jump on the sandbox/crafting game bandwagon.

 

[HeatSurge]

TWI don't have to listen to anyone, whether they have 9001 hours in KF2, are sponsored by Mountain Dewritos in their alt life, have a Patriarch blow-up doll, or whatever.

It's a private game, and when they ask for specific feedback (KF2/KF1 akimbo aiming style is the only time I'm aware this has happened since "EA"), they'll take note of it, but again they aren't bound to listen to that or implement it the way some or most people want.

With a game, it's pretty impossible to listen to everyone, so in the end nobody's going to be happy if they want it to be exactly the way they want.

I think only the really obvious and grievous items get a lot of random attention, the rest is just noise. Without a system or arrangement to propose and vote for changes/features/whatever, it's also pretty hard to filter and make sense of that noise.

 

[Void]

What HeatSurge said. People are really overestimating their relevance. Why should TW waste all the time explaining every little ****ing detail to a tiny group of people who think they know it all while they are selling the game to hundreds of thousand and millions in the future?

Get over yourself, you are not deciding anything.

 

[Hatesandwich]

to quote from the pre early access stream:

"The goal with Hell on Earth was to make a difficulty that we couldn't actually beat in the office ourselves"

It's meant to be absurdly stupid hard, not the primo go-to game difficulty for which everything should be balanced around. Stop acting like it's the only relevant difficulty.

 

[Rak]

This also happened with the RO2 release. TWI hates admitting mistakes (even though they affect the game balance massively) and as you said, only gives in to strong pressure.

 

[polomi]

to quote from the pre early access stream:

"The goal with Hell on Earth was to make a difficulty that we couldn't actually beat in the office ourselves"

It's meant to be absurdly stupid hard, not the primo go-to game difficulty for which everything should be balanced around. Stop acting like it's the only relevant difficulty.

I think there is a misunderstanding. I never claimed that HoE should be made easier or that it is the only relevant difficulty. This is actually a side topic because I mostly wanted to talk about communication. But if you're worried about are the specific feedback that I used to illustrate the point, let me explain better.

I think everyone agrees with the quote from the Early Access page. This is how HoE should be, and this is why it was added in the first place to KF1 in 2010. The current issue is that because of some small imbalances, HoE is actually not nearly as hard/interesting/entertaining/fun as it should be if we were to believe this quote.

And of course I agree that lower difficulties are absolutely central to the game and very relevant. I think I talked about that extensively before. The TLDR is that lower difficulties also benefit from balance fixes for the game on HoE, since many balance issues are common to all difficulties.

I am not trying to be confrontational or elitist. I think that what is asked for by the people in this thread, things such as an ongoing permanent balance focused beta, can benefit the whole KF2 community.

 

[Rafin The Red]

Perhaps you guys can actually indicate you are listening from time to time. If I'm being entirely honest, it does not appear anyone on reddit or the steam forum believes you guys really are listening. All communication is almost completely one sided, amounting to basically press releases.

I'm completely indifferent about MTs, I see no value in gambling crates and cannot get upset or excited about a system that does not appeal to me in the slightest. However, the timing of the Trading Floor announcement- showing a monetization scheme before releasing any content or balance fixes while impatience with the lack of progress is as high as I've ever seen- really makes me wonder how out of touch you guys are.

Balance was the number one topic on reddit, the steam forums, and here before MTs came up, and besides one quick jab at nuke in a WWAUT and one comment on the Zwei, not a thing has been said to indicate you actually hear or care. Please, gather a list of issues you'll be reviewing and let us know you're actually listening.

Ditto.

Timing and priorities speak volumes.

 

[Munchiesaurus Rex]

I think there is a misunderstanding. I never claimed that HoE should be made easier or that it is the only relevant difficulty. This is actually a side topic because I mostly wanted to talk about communication. But if you're worried about are the specific feedback that I used to illustrate the point, let me explain better.

I think everyone agrees with the quote from the Early Access page. This is how HoE should be, and this is why it was added in the first place to KF1 in 2010. The current issue is that because of some small imbalances, HoE is actually not nearly as hard/interesting/entertaining/fun as it should be if we were to believe this quote.

And of course I agree that lower difficulties are absolutely central to the game and very relevant. I think I talked about that extensively before. The TLDR is that lower difficulties also benefit from balance fixes for the game on HoE, since many balance issues are common to all difficulties.

I am not trying to be confrontational or elitist. I think that what is asked for by the people in this thread, things such as an ongoing permanent balance focused beta, can benefit the whole KF2 community.

Has anyone of you ever stopped and thought that the game don't have all of it's data in yet - to start ballancing? Untill there are all of the perks, zeds and weapons - you can't ballance anything or if you try to ballance - it will be a HUGE waste of time because when new data is implemented the ballnace must be done all over again. I am not trying to start a flame war or anything it's just the way software is done.

Look at the gameplay of KF2 and tell me - what mistakes can you do so that the whole team loses. I can tell you - there are none. There are no mistakes that can be done so that the team is wiped. I haven't had a losing game in KF2 for months. A game that has no way for you to lose is a casual game in my book. Every casual gamer can survive HoE if they have lvl 25 Zerker, Medic and Firebug ... the reasons I die in KF2 is because I try to save other people - if I just run away when 1/2 of the team dies then I will not only have a winning streak I will proabbly not die a single time.

In that line of thoughts I agree with you - KF2 needs to become unforgiving on HoE. Do whatever you want with any other dificulty but any small mistake must have huge consequences on HoE and it must be a lot faster. Lets take for example Hans granades. The only reason people die on hans is if they are not counscious enough and dont run away from his granades. BUT there is so much time between his throwing and the actual explosion that a zerker or a medic can go to the other side of the map, heal 3 times and sit there and wait for a bit, while he is still throwing them.

I know that this is TWIs game and they wan't to make the game appeal to everyone so that they can sell their cosmetics but at least let us the vets have our Hell on earth or make a new even harder dificulty. The only reason KF1 was so good is because Hell on earth was an actual hell on earth - even with all the combos OP zerkers and OP Sharpshooter - it was god damn hard and not anyone could do it.

Because I hate to only whine and not give suggestions - here is mine. If you want to make KF2 casual RPG shooter - go ahead - I like casual RPG shooters aswell. But in order to appeal not only to the people who like to relax and chop some heads - make an allways changing dificulty. Call it Experimental or something put a HUGE WARNING that this is so hard your brain might explode and every time someone proves with a video from wave 1 to wave 10 and boss that he have beaten it - make it even harder and scramble the spawns so you don't know whats coming for you. You can put a skin or two for the people who actually beat it - it's your choice

This is my rant and it's over add me on Steam if you wan't to play sometime I allways like playing with folks from the forum 99asdf99

Cheers

 

[Greenbacks]

Something as simple as a poll could calm the masses here. Tripwire could choose several solutions they are considering for something like say, Nuke, and put it in a poll for people to vote. Not only would this make the community feel like they are involved but it would also calm those with their own ideas when they see that this change happened because the majority of the community wanted it. They won't be able to crucify Tripwire for the change.

 

[Munchiesaurus Rex]

Something as simple as a poll could calm the masses here. Tripwire could choose several solutions they are considering for something like say, Nuke, and put it in a poll for people to vote. Not only would this make the community feel like they are involved but it would also calm those with their own ideas when they see that this change happened because the majority of the community wanted it. They won't be able to crucify Tripwire for the change.

You are right. Polls are allways awesome. Sometimes however masses don't really know whats best due to not being involved into software projects and not knowing how things are done. Someone form TWI somewhere mentioned that they use the Waterfall method that they have modified it in their way.

So having that in mind they do the whole process every time they make a release. So for every update they do preliminary design, detailed design, coding and unit testing, integration, and testing. So they take every update as a new project. The problem with Waterfall is usually that after the process is done - there is very little that can be done to change anything without breaking the whole software.

Now what TWI have done is actually pretty smart - having every update being a different project can give more ground for changes without breaking the whole game and having all the community do the last phase - the Testing is also great because they gather so much data from so many sources.

The ballance in the game MUST come after all the updates are done or it would be pointless. Every update has his ballance done but that results in what we see - making the game really easy since the last time the dificulty has been ballanced was with the release of the EA after that they are only adding data.

I have faith in TWI that they will deliver an awesome game. People being impatient is another thing, I myself LOVE seeing how every feature is implemented just because Im a nerd and that gives me some strange satisfaction. Also I am a noob in software development project management so I learn a lot of things from EA games.

So polls sound really awesome but sometimes masses don't really know whats best it takes one person to make a decision. It's allways good to know what the mass wants but not allways a good idea to do what the mass wants

 

[[TW]Ramm-Jaeger]

This also happened with the RO2 release. TWI hates admitting mistakes (even though they affect the game balance massively) and as you said, only gives in to strong pressure.

No one likes admitting mistake, but I'm the first one to jump on the forums and admit when we've made a mistake, and I even personally went in a video saying we made a mistake when we launched RO2 too early. See here for an example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiqNFuE5HFk

Also, it's a common misconception that we respond to "strong pressure", if by strong pressure you mean angry rants and bad attitudes. Angry rants and bad attitudes are more likely to result in the devs not even visiting the forums than to get any sort of attention or action.

The two things we respond to the most to are intelligent, civil discussion, and then volume of feedback. So when people make their case in an intelligent, civil manner, those items usually get added to our planning system for consideration. There will never be time to add every suggestion or make every change, not with millions of people playing our games, but they do get discussed and considered based on priority.

The priority generally comes from volume of feedback. So if we have a very large number of people talking about an issue, that issue goes up in priority and will get considered first. If its a very small handful of people talking about an issue, it will still get on the list, but it may take longer to get to.

Remember, we're real people, and we'll respond like real people. For instance if you went up to a friend and start screaming in their face about wanting them to change something, you'll like get them flying you the bird or punching you in the face. But if you go in and have a civil discussion with them about it, then you'll get consideration for your point and maybe even change.

 

[[TW]Ramm-Jaeger]

Are there any HOE players on here that I could add on Steam so we can chat and I can get in a match with you? I'd like to see the issues that you are talking about first hand. I do a lot of the balance work on KF2 and I'd like to see the issues in action. If you would like, please PM me your steam name and I'll add you on Steam. My steam nick is rammjaeger.

 

[Oddux]

The ballance in the game MUST come after all the updates are done or it would be pointless. Every update has his ballance done but that results in what we see - making the game really easy since the last time the dificulty has been ballanced was with the release of the EA after that they are only adding data.

Two problems with waiting until the release is done to balance everything:

One, since this is an early access game, you do have players who have purchased the product actively playing it. The reality, regardless of how some people argue it should be, is that not all players are just on board to be testers. Still, they have a voice that can be heard and seen in reviews and the like. Making sure the game is interesting and playable garners positive reviews and prevents negative ones and generates word of mouth that will continue to help or hurt the game's long term sales. When things become stale and uninteresting because lopsided balance creates a situation where everyone is using the same thing to be effective, it drives away players and hurts long term prospects.

Two, even without the classes we can see that Nuke and MWG are dominating everything. As long as they have a baseline they want to see for effectiveness, they can balance even without the other classes. You're not going to get balance nailed on the first pass, and between passes it takes weeks to gather data for effective changes. It will take months and multiple updates to get balance right. The more they tweak the perks, the more data and feedback they can gather on balance. If they start now they can have a much more balanced and squared away game when they hit full release.

Are there any HOE players on here that I could add on Steam so we can chat and I can get in a match with you? I'd like to see the issues that you are talking about first hand. I do a lot of the balance work on KF2 and I'd like to see the issues in action. If you would like, please PM me your steam name and I'll add you on Steam. My steam nick is rammjaeger.

I would recommend you add polomi. Myself and half the reddit community are on his friends list which has dozens of HoE players across dozens of countries. Like many other players, I mostly just try to challenge myself in solo HOE unless he comes along and organizes a game. There is also a reddit KF2 group that organizes HoE games on the weekends on their community servers.

 

[[TW]Ramm-Jaeger]

Some of these bugs may already be in our system, so if I ask questions that doesn't mean they aren't already being worked on, it just means I may not personally be aware of them. Some notes on your mentioned bugs in your document:

- Disconnecting and reconnecting to farm Dosh still works 1 time
Can you describe what this is in detail?

- Zeds aggroing on players standing on dead bodies breaks AI (video)
Does this work in multiplayer? I assume that it would not, since in MP dead bodies disappear instantly on the server.

- Recoil is higher on solo local than on dedicated server (video)
This was fixed for the upcoming update

- Ammo disappearing from mag when switching weapons
Can you add more detail to this?

- Buying weapons at the trader sometimes doesn

 

[Escadin]

Has anyone of you ever stopped and thought that the game don't have all of it's data in yet - to start ballancing? Untill there are all of the perks, zeds and weapons - you can't ballance anything or if you try to ballance - it will be a HUGE waste of time because when new data is implemented the ballnace must be done all over again. I am not trying to start a flame war or anything it's just the way software is done.

If that is true then how is the release of gunslinger and the patriarch going to affect for example lacerate (a skill which has no measurable effect) according to what you say?

More specifically what is their implementation going to break if they for example ramped up lacerates damage by factor 10 and why would they have to redo the whole procedure?

 

[Willis]

Yeah, some people are missing the point of this post and misinterpreting things.

1. It's not about a small group of HoE players overestimating their relevance, or imposing demands. Of course it's TW's decision to listen or not, but experienced players, people who care about the game are giving their feedback, and TW only appears to be listening when everyone complains (ex: zerk balance). TW had stated multiple times that they were going to listen to people's feedback during Early Access (*). This thread is just confronting that vs. the reality.
2. As polomi said, lower difficulties are also important, but balancing for HoE will have a cascade effect on the balance of the rest of the difficulties. And it's not about making HoE stupid hard, because if that were the case, just make zeds have infinite health, high damage and be done with it. HoE should be about high individual and team oriented skill.

(*)
* https://youtu.be/pcXgOxocusg?t=232 "It's about creating something that we can put out there and get feedback from the players so that we can just polish our game up and tune it into what people want" - John Gibson
* https://youtu.be/kiZ20bYoN_8?t=196 "A lot of it is just about about picking ideas out of the community. This is one of the reasons we want to go with Early Access with KF2; let's see what people react to, we want to see what people enjoy [..] You enjoy it, we enjoy it, everyone's happy" - Alan Wilson

 

[Wallaby]

Sometimes I feel TWI's feedback is as automated as Roblox. As much as I am impressed with their work, I sometimes feel helpless when I try to contribute my input, which I try my darnest to keep reasonable and thought-out. Unfortunately, they are at the stage right now that makes them appear like a selfish boyfriend-- they'll ignore you 99% of the time unless you bring something up that they are actually interested in. The only time I ever got moderator feedback was not even a solid request- it was the build before the I&D pack where there were several bugs with the audio and I poked at that issue, and of course this was something they were already intent on fixing at the time, so of course it got attention. There were plenty of issues still concerning us at the time (and still are) but it's what they had their mind set to do so it's in proper mentality that they would give feedback on the issue based on something they agreed with. Everyone wins, right?

Eventually I hope to see TWI be more on-the-gun towards community feedback, hopefully before the game is out of EA and they're on their end game with the stuff we didn't ask for (20% damage increase for either single fire OR auto/burst fire? REALLY? SKILL game?). It isn't helping that they have to dig through the mud to get to the good stuff, which is especially true towards the forum. But you can't just give a badge to every one with a good idea either because that will seclude the part of the community that feels left out. Also, they're too busy scratching paint off their guns to bother with it.

 

[Greenbacks]

I agree with almost all of the google document polomi has shared, I'd like to share a bit of my own opinion:

The suggestion for Furious Defender isn't bad, but I still would feel like both skills aren't effective and Furious Defender would always be chosen. As you say it makes a lot more sense to simply attack than block because block takes so long. I think the damage boost after blocking should be boosted to 100%, since you can attack roughly two times in the time it takes to block.

Nerfing Nuke by halving the poison damage will probably not be enough. I'd suggest removing the extra initial damage and radius it has and giving that to Concussive Force instead. This way Nuke would be more of a crowd control skill, and Concussive Force more of a large zed skill, having more initial damage but no lasting effects, making both options viable.

I agree about M79, but I think it should have more ammo and less of a damage boost so it can better fit the niche of "less powerful but more ammo". In this way it can remain relevant and be good for many small groups while RPG is good for the big groups.

 

[Dolphi123]

How does one find 25 best players of Killing Floor I have met very good players before but have no clue whether they are the best or not? I would like to know how you found the best players so i can decide whether or not their opinions even matter. Also as said previously why would tripwire listen to 25 people who have the time to invest 2000 hours into their game to become the"best" im not saying their opinions dont matter but if i was them I would rather listen to a group of 250 random people with at least 100 hours in the game rather than 25 people who have spent 2000. Its not about making the best players happy but about making the most people happy(from a business standpoint) .