January, 30, 2012

[Cpt-Praxius]

With all the jackwads in here who demand the sun and the moon.... who are given information, yet it's never enough.... who demand "Concrete" information, blah blah blah.....

..... Maybe Tripwire should just stop giving you all information all together, because no matter what they say or do, you'll twist it to mean something else, or hang it up for later so when something isn't exactly as you think it should be or as you interpreted, you'll just drag it out and moan on like "See.... they said this, but this is what happened, they lied to us, wah wah!!!"

Tripwire should just put out patches without notice and let players just figure out on their own what's different or what they were working on.

It's not like they're obligated to tell us anything..... technically, they probably don't even need to update or patch the game anymore if they don't want to and go on another cruise just to piss you guys off further.

I would..... and that's why I'm not Tripwire's PR guy

Now.... bring on the neg reps.... I need more filling my screen so I look uber-evil and the bad guy...... thanks.

Now.... back to the topic a bit in a more constructive manner, people can not expect to get exact deadlines for when certain things will be done, because game development is not an exact science. If game development was an exact science, they wouldn't have had to delay RO2's release like they did and everything would have been done & ready to go on the original dates they stated in the past.

Things come up, and as what happens to all games, once they are out the door and out to the masses to play.... more and more bugs and issues, as well as gameplay decisions come out into the open that cause problems that were not originally caught in earlier small numbers testing.

Yes, Trip did drop the ball on a few things with RO2 and there is a lot of room for improvement in the eyes of a lot of people in here.... and some of you are not just upset, but perhaps even angry that you got a game that doesn't meet your expectations, however with the past examples of patches and updates since launch, Tripwire is trying to resolve many of these issues.

They even acknowledged a lot of people want a game that matches their RO1 desires..... thus they announced the RO Classic game mode..... there's no timeline on when this will be completed and ready to go, because common sense would tell everybody that they need to have people test what they do first, via the Beta, to see if it meets the demands of those who want it.

If it doesn't or certain things need changing, then that will take additional time to do..... then test it again, and eventually when it's all sorted out and to a style those who want the RO Classic mode want..... it will go live.

But there could be several stages of changing/testing this mode before it's ready.... thus if they say we should expect the RO Classic mode in a month's time now..... if the testing and feedback take longer than expected (which is almost always the case).... it won't meet such a deadline.

Then again, it could be done sooner than expected and ready to go live a couple of weeks earlier..... nobody knows how long it will take, not even the devs.

So people can demand and yell all they want for exact time lines and dates for completing certain things.... they're not going to get much, because there simply are not any answers or exact dates to give us.

 

[Bashenka]

I love the weekly updates

Me too! I personally have no problem with how Tripwire is managing things. They are updating us weekly on general plans, and soon (relatively) we will have a big update patch with gameplay changes and new content. I mean, what ELSE do you need to know?! Changes are coming.

 

[shadowmoses]

I do appreciate your updates, but I feel since Ramm stopped posting in RO2 section, we've been left in the dark about what you guys are doing out there other than "working on optimizations and fixes" and "working on a big content update" and lots of "soon". There are people thinking you've moved on from RO2 already.

Can we have someone come down here who's in charge of RO2 and isn't afraid of telling what TWI wants to do with the game(like Ramm did) time to time? There's still a lot of people who think the gameplay is broken, and as one of them I couldn't care less about new content as long as the gameplay is in this state.

It's Yoshi's ASSIGNED TASK to let us know. Information on up coming work and projects go to him, not John. He does his job very well and I couldn't think of anyone better to do these updates. I implore Ramm to NOT post on the forums as many do not realize his new changed focus in studio and will only lead to confusion. Many of his posts have also started quite the outrage in certain threads and god knows how much we don't need more flaming and trolling.

 

[Zetsumei]

The thing is people want to know TWI's vision their personal goals for HOS. Something that should be perfectly clear within TWI itself. Because customers that bought the game just don't know what sort of game RO2 is trying to be.

The reason why people want Ramm to answer, is because most people likely feel that Ramm is the key person of influence in the decision making. The job of PR is to keep the community happy but pr doesn't necessarily have a lot of power over changes made. With sugercoated answers, that generally do not reveal anything, and just imply certain things, allowing people always to go back on their words.

Its exactly because those early posts by Ramm, intended to calm the community. Which showcased that he didn't understood the communities issues with the game, and simply didn't even care for people their issues. The reason why people want him to answer is simply to know whether something has truly changed. People want to believe in RO2 but are simply getting sick of waiting, and would rather hear that the target audience has shifted and that they can **** off. Than all sorts of promises that have been made that turned out blatant lies.

Things can always change, and original ideas do not always work out. But what people want is honesty. A clear list stating we want this in an ideal case, and then later stating these things won't be possible for this or this reason or playtesting showed it didn't work well. At least make things clear.

The game has been out for about 5 months now, and people simply grow impatient. Its the love for RO1 that keeps people around with hope of seeing a game they love again, but with nearly half a year after release with a lot of the promised launch features still missing, or feeling that features have been implemented on a rush without proper game play testing makes people a bit tired. This combined with things saying that RO's unlock system won't be like cod's, TWI actually managed to implement one of the worst unlock systems I've seen in a fps. Straight upgrade path with big improvements, and you cannot even pick your unlock.

A lot of people that liked RO1, paid a full game price of 45 euro for the game. Both to support twi as get access to the beta, its logical that people feel betrayed. Roost was full of bugs and issues, but while it had less systems implemented all systems worked well together and had great synergy, in HOS it seems there are a lot of features for the sake of adding features to the checklist without too much time spent on getting the individual features to work right and work well together.

Nobody that I know thinks the singe player component is worth of any play time, I know nobody that praises the functionality of the unlock system including those that like unlock systems. The squad, commander and team play functions could just as well not be there as in the current way nobody uses them or even knows in what squad they are. A lot of people feel that lock down while on paper is a good suggestion, in its current implementation causes more frustration than good. Roost had its limitations but everything that was there worked very well together.

The game being out for about 5 months now, with so far based on what TWI said no concrete plans have been created for any gameplay balancing fixing and tweaking meaning that any code will have to be written. With just a promise that a ROClassic mode will come, at some undetermined time, is logically not going to make people happy. Especially since getting gameplay feel and work out correctly is something that generally goes over a period of multiple months rather than weeks (heck look at the KF balancing patch that was going on).

Wherever beneficial TWI states its like the big companies out there, yet whenever people put similar expectations to big companies the excuse is made that TWI is much smaller than all the big companies.

What I would like to see, is some honesty, even if it ends up being something I don't like. If you're tough enough to imply the game is going to be a COD killer, you should be tough enough to admit where things didn't turn out as planned rather than keeping silent about it and suddenly disappear.

 

[defektive]

I like and appreciate the weekly updates and I hope that they continue. I play the game very little now but I do drop into the forum to read the weekly update, and occasionally comment in other threads. Essentially I pop in here to hunt for titbits of information about the

 

[melipone]

Personally I didn't really like a lot of the communication in the first few months after launch, and feel Yoshiro's updates are a very welcome change. You might think it sounds "political", but its professional and doesn't have the "I know whats best for you" attitude or make excuses like blaming other game releases or argue about how mkb's are similar to STG44's and people didn't complain about them in Ostfront. Its good to see what developers think and for them to speak honestly their viewpoints, but it depends on the content really. I just didn't really care for a lot of what I saw posted. On the one hand you want transparency, but that may not be a good idea if you will expose something people would rather wasn't there

The post about taking things slowly because the forums are only 0.01% did get blown up a bit too much though imo. However the part about the community getting something wrong and then "most" of the playerbase coming to post about how it was a bad addition came off as dishonest or a distortion of the truth because he couldn't actually remember the example so no one could verify it. The intent behind that whole post seemed to be to try to avoid taking what was written here seriously, and I think it gave people the impression that TWI just didn't care about their forum community and probably drove a bunch of people away or deterred them from posting at all. You should want to expand the community not the opposite. You should take time and get multiple sides of the issue, and get opinions from other sources sure, but there was another intent there that I didn't like, and it was very similar in other posts

I don't think they should rush the classic mode either. It might be one shot at getting a decent amount of players back and recover some reputation, and if its sloppy or half done then people may not want to come back another time

 

[omniconsumer]

I don't understand the big deal. We all know the game could use some more changes, but whatever. Live your lives, time will fly, and hopefully we will have everything we want and more from RO2 in no time!

 

[Bashenka]

This combined with things saying that RO's unlock system won't be like cod's, TWI actually managed to implement one of the worst unlock systems I've seen in a fps. Straight upgrade path with big improvements, and you cannot even pick your unlock.

I agree with you (and everyone else) that you should be able to choose unlocks, but I don't actually think there are big improvements in the upgrades.
Mosin
- same weapon, cleaner model
Kar 98k
- remove sight hood (aka aesthetic difference)
P-38
-...Black hand Grip...
etc.

arguably the biggest upgrades are the PPSH and the MP-40 (off the top of my head), but even these don't change the guns themselves, just the frequency of reloads. The ppsh remains the same weapon, but the reload needs to be micro-ed more with the 35 round stick mag, and the lvl 50 upgrade barely adds anything, just a select fire upgrade for the "coolness" effect.


IMO the upgrades are very reasonable, and serve the purpose of giving us something slightly different to make the player feel better. Yesterday, for example, I got my scoped mosin to lvl 25 and I love it, simply for the fact that I've never seen that weapon before and acts somewhat like a re-skin of a gun we've all been using since RO1. I don't shoot people any better, and it took me a loooooooong time to unlock it. But it looks cool

 

[Zetsumei]

I meant mostly the stat boosts like 20% faster rebolting.

 

[Bashenka]

I meant mostly the stat boosts like 20% faster rebolting.

Ah. Well that's a different story. I agree that those stats (especially movement speed) shouldn't be in, but I understand why they're there. Soldiers with experience will know how to better navigate moving through rubble streets/towns, and an experienced rifleman will bolt faster and ADS faster than a beginning soldier after years of practice. This is all good in real life, but in the case of a game, it's clear that this creates an imbalance. Obviously the 20% faster rebolting doesn't translate to a 20% better soldier, but it does give them an edge that they don't need, seeing as the game is already a skill based shooter, and more experienced gamers will line up a shot more quickly and effectively anyway. Theory aside, I haven't even noticed it when gaming.

 

[Kerc Kasha]

My only problem with the current 'lack' of communication(which there hasn't been really, just a specific kind of communication) is that the last real 'state of the game' posts by Ramm included things like 'the stg44 was fine in ro1, having a fully realized assault rifle is fine in Ro2' 'the forum is only 0.001% of the players and therefore don't represent the opinion of the community' etc. I'm heavily paraphrasing but the point is the last time someone from tripwire actually said how the game was going it was pretty much 'it's all fine stop whining, you'll get used to it!' when clearly there is something fundamentally wrong with the game and has been since the beta opened up to deluxe edition players.

Instead of addressing these issues, admitting there's a problem, everything so far has been cop outs of 'we're working on it/looking into it' as if the problem itself isn't inherently obvious, you took a tactical slow-teambased game and threw arcade game mechanics at it until it was as shallow as a kiddy pool. This made the veterans hate it, and the tourists hate it because it wasn't polished enough or not arcadey enough.

 

[defektive]

...20%... Theory aside, I haven't even noticed it when gaming.

Generally you won't notice them because the increases are graduated over time thus you acclimatise; however, that doesn't mean that they aren't there and in no way serves to justify their presence. Go from lvl50 to lvl0 in the same weapon (via stats reset) and all of a sudden the weapon will feel like it's a well used cast-off. (I did, and it did; the SVT. I was roughly 5-15% worse than I was before. As far as the percentages go one might have expected me to be 20-30% worse but accumulated game skill up to that moment compensated

 

[kalle]

The old argument in defence of stat progression: it's logical that soldiers become better over time (i.e recruit -> veteran), each time I see it I get a bit grumpy.

My question is WHY should the experience and physique of the soldier you spawn as be based on your level and how you have played the game before?

(ok, you could argue that giving input to this soldier through you mouse and keyboard is the same thing, but isnt that enough though..)

 

[Proud_God]

The old argument in defence of stat progression: it's logical that soldiers become better over time (i.e recruit > veteran), each time I see it I get a bit grumpy.

My question is WHY should the experienced and physique of the soldier you spawn as be based on your level and how you have played the game before?

(ok, you could argue that giving input to this soldier through you mouse and keyboard is the same thing, but isnt that enough though..)

I know, right?

[Rubs temples]
Calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean..
[/Rubs temples]

 

[ARMY guy]

I meant mostly the stat boosts like 20% faster rebolting.

I think im the only one that likes this about the game. I like being rewarded for playing the MG class only for gobs of hours over someone who did not.

 

[Proud_God]

I think im the only one that likes this about the game. I like being rewarded for playing the MG class only for gobs of hours over someone who did not.

I like killing people with an LMG. That's my reward.

 

[dazman76]

My question is WHY should the experience and physique of the soldier you spawn as be based on your level and how you have played the game before?

Totally agreed. Any improvement should be down to your OWN improvement at actually playing the game. Don't feel like you're getting any better over time? Try Peggle instead

 

[Rak]

Instead of addressing these issues, admitting there's a problem, everything so far has been cop outs of 'we're working on it/looking into it' as if the problem itself isn't inherently obvious, you took a tactical slow-teambased game and threw arcade game mechanics at it until it was as shallow as a kiddy pool. This made the veterans hate it, and the tourists hate it because it wasn't polished enough or not arcadey enough.

Seriously this. PLEASE acknowledge that you screwed up the gameplay and you'll make it right. Do not give us that "We're listening to community so we may do a special 'RO Classic mode' " diplomatic crap.

You don't need to listen to the community to see how broken your gameplay, unlocks etc is. After all you are the creator of the RO. TWI should be able to see this, acknowledge this, and make it right, but they don't. It makes me mad after all the hours and work I've put in RO, and now seeing it fade away.

 

[Zetsumei]

I think im the only one that likes this about the game. I like being rewarded for playing the MG class only for gobs of hours over someone who did not.

There are reward systems that that I like that offer something else than straight upgrade paths, and generally this goes in the point of offering longer players more customization options.

An example for an mg could be either use the regular drum mag with limited capacity, or use the belt fed mg but as counteract loose the ability to hip fire. Or for a rifle using a bayonet gives close range advantage but makes the tip of the gun heavier giving some more sway. For a ppsh the drum could perhaps semi jam at times creating variance in firing rate and perhaps a bit jerkier recoil. Compared to say the stick which contains less bullets.

Or players could choose to trade in some stamina stats an in replace obtain lower sway. Or people could perhaps increase their stamina at the cost of higher recoil. All these examples are not necessarily realistic, but the key point is that every option should have advantages and disadvantages. And it should be such that the user can decide to use it or not.

While the above examples are not so much realistic the key is making upgrades and unlocks act more as a way to tweak the game to your specific taste rather than simply make your character better in every conceivable way. This way new players are not inherently at a disadvantage based on gear.

I don't remember which game it was but In the past I played a game where different attributes had stat points. Initially you would be stuck with the default setup, but when leveling up you could take away stat points from one ability and place them somewhere else.

That way new players wouldn't immediately be confronted with all the possible ways to set certain settings, and would learn to play with a default average set up. And then once the level up can slowly take away skill points from whatever they use less and add them to whatever they use most.

So while leveling up then makes you end with a character completely set up to the way of your play style. Its not necessarily better than a new player in absolute sense, as for your advantages you obtained disadvantages in other fields.

--------------------------------------------------------

As I'm one of the members on these forums that probably cares the least for realism, the ability to attain weapon unlocks and skill changes is not something I hate. (As long as it can be made equal for all players for competive players).
However an unlock or level gaining system, should not have as goal to just make your character better mmo style, but rather to customize and tweak a character to your preferences.

I say that for instance cod does it better, as there while you unlock all sort of perks, you cannot use them at the same time. So in the end you pick whatever perks you gained that help you and your play style the most. The current hos unlock and level up system is like COD perks but then you can use all perks gained at the same time, heck you cannot even remove them.

 

[slimdan22]

January, 30, 2012

I have been a little bit more inactive on this board lately. I still see discussions regarding the Hardcore mode. Maybe It